II. FINES AND PENANCES…

II. FINES AND PENANCES

Although, at least in the earlier period, confiscation was the main financial reliance of the Inquisition, it had other resources. Of these a productive one was the pecuniary penance which the tribunals had discretionary power of imposing on those whose offences amounted only to suspicion of heresy and not to the formal heresy which entailed reconciliation or relaxation with confiscation.

Almsgiving in satisfaction of sin formed a feature of ecclesiastical practice and, in the middle ages, the schoolmen had no difficulty in proving that pecuniary penance was more efficacious than any other[1125]--and it certainly was more efficacious in the sense that the enormous possessions of the Church were largely gathered from this source. Moreover, the inquisitor inherited from his medieval predecessors an undefined duplicate function of confessor and judge--his culprits were penitents and the punishments he inflicted were penances.[1126] Even when the canon law required the hardened or relapsed heretics to be relaxed to the secular arm for burning, they are sometimes alluded to as penitenciados[1127] When, under the early Edicts of Grace, penitents by the thousand flocked to confess their sins and escape corporal penalties and confiscation, the inquisitor was instructed to make them give as "alms" a portion of their property, according to the quality of the person and the character and duration of his offences, and these penitencias pecuniarias were to be applied to the war with Granada as to the most pious of causes.[1128] Thus, at the start, pecuniary penance and almsgiving were regarded as convertible terms, both equally applicable to the discretionary fines which the inquisitor could impose on his penitent. There was a technical, though not a practical, distinction between these and the mulcts inflicted on offenders for other than spiritual offences, in the exercise of the royal jurisdiction conferred on the Holy Office. They formed together a common fund which was known as that of the penas y penitencias--the fines and penances--of which the former were drawn from the secular and the latter from the spiritual jurisdiction. This distinction at best was shadowy and though it was observed at first, in time the tribunals grew indifferent and recognized that penance was punishment.

The earliest formality is seen in the case of Brianda de Bardaxí, where the consulta de fe, March 18, 1492, pronounces her guilty of vehement suspicion, to be penanced at the discretion of the inquisitors. Accordingly, on March 20th, the inquisitors deliberated on the "penance" and pronounced an Impositio penitentie, consisting of five years' imprisonment, with certain spiritual observances, "and moreover we penance her in the third part of all her property, which we apply to the coffer of penances of this tribunal and to the costs of her trial, which third part, or its true value, we order to be paid within ten days to Martin de Cota, receiver of penances."[1129] By the middle of the sixteenth century this scruple was overcome. In the case of Mari Serrana, at Toledo in 1545, the consulta de fe, it is true, votes that she be "penanced" in a third of her property, but the public sentence, which customarily did not specify the amount, after enumerating certain spiritual observances, adds "also the pecuniary punishment imposed on her, for a certain reason is reserved for the present." So, in the case of Mari Gómez, in 1551, it is stated that she is "condemned" in twenty ducats for the expenses of the tribunal, which she is to pay within nine days to the receiver. When the sentence was read to her in the audience-chamber, she asked how she was to pay the twenty ducats and was told it would come out of the property sequestrated at her arrest.[1130] Sequestration, we may observe, enabled the tribunal to help itself at discretion from the culprit's property and to proportion the penalty to his ability.

[Sidenote: DISTINCT FROM CONFISCATION]

There was an advantage to the Inquisition in considering these fines as penitential, for penance was part of the sacrament of absolution which was an ecclesiastical function, the proceeds of which were controlled by the Church, and it differed thus wholly from confiscation. It is true that practically this was merely a verbal juggle, for the inquisitor did not absolve and, as he was not necessarily a priest, his office did not comprise the administration of the sacraments, but the verbal juggle sufficed and serves to explain the rigid separation of the funds arising from penance and from confiscation, even after both were controlled by the Inquisition. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 338) the prolonged struggle made by Ferdinand to obtain possession of the penances, which finally terminated in favor of the Inquisition. This was rather beneficial to the accused, as the tribunal would be inclined to find him guilty only of suspicion of heresy, enabling it to inflict a pecuniary penance for its own benefit, rather than of formal heresy which inferred confiscation. Of course this passed away when financial control practically lapsed to the Suprema, but the distinction between the funds was still maintained.

In the earlier period the distinction was emphasized by the office of special receiver for the penances, who seems to have been subject to the inquisitor-general, while the receiver of confiscations held from the king. Thus the sentence of Brianda de Bardaxí shows us Martin de Cota as receiver of penances in Saragossa in 1492 and we still hear of him in that position in 1497, while Ferdinand had, as his own receiver, Juan Denbin, succeeded by Juan Royz. As early as 1486, Esteve Costa was "receptor de las penitencias" in Valencia, whose salary of fifty libras shows the office to be of much less importance than that of the receiver of confiscations.[1131] Still, there came to be no settled rule about this. In 1498, Juan Royz was receiver of both penances and confiscations in Saragossa and, in Valencia, Juan de Monasterio was inquisitor and at the same time receiver of penances, while, in 1512, in Barcelona the fiscal also filled the latter office, as we learn from his salary being suspended until he should render an account of his receipts.[1132] As late as 1515 there was still a special receiver of penances in Huesca, the Canon Pero Pérez, whose death revealed him to be a defaulter to the extent of four thousand sueldos, when the office was consolidated with that of the receivership.[1133] In 1516, among his other reforms, Ximenes abolished this special office and put the fines and penances in the hands of the receivers of confiscations, with instructions, however, to keep the funds separate and not to disburse the fines and penances except on orders from the inquisitor-general. There had previously been, in the Suprema, a receiver-general of fines and penances, an office which was likewise suppressed and all the revenues were placed in charge of a single official, a regulation which was confirmed by Manrique in 1524.[1134]

[Sidenote: DISTINCT FROM CONFISCATION]

There was difficulty in preventing the unauthorized collection of these funds, by other officials, with the consequent absence of responsibility and risk of embezzlement. In instructions for the prevention of abuses, October 10, 1546, it is prescribed that all fines be paid to the receiver; again, August 20, 1547, it is ordered that neither the inquisitors nor other officials save the receiver shall collect the penances or other moneys. Inspection of the Barcelona tribunal, in 1549, showed that this was not obeyed; other officials made the collections and they were not reported to the receiver, all of which was forbidden for the future, but the order of 1547 had to be repeated December 4, 1551, May 9, 1553, and December 20, 1555.[1135] Evidently there were leaks which the Suprema was vainly seeking to stop. A special commission was issued, January 12, 1549, to Gerónimo Zurita, as contador for the kingdoms of Aragon, to audit the accounts of all receivers, past, present and to come, concerning the fines and penances and other parties casuelles, with full powers to send for persons and papers under such penalties as he might designate, which is highly significant.[1136] Possibly his investigations led to a carta acordada of September 23, 1551, which states that, in some tribunals, some of the pecuniary penalties are not entered in the Book of Punishments; the notaries of sequestrations are therefore impressively ordered, under holy obedience and major excommunication latæ sententiæ, to make such entries when sentence is rendered, stating whether they are applicable to the Inquisition or to some pious work, so that the contador may know whether they are collected, and all fines thus omitted are to be deducted from the salaries of the notaries.[1137] As, by this time, the fines and penalties were invariably applied to the Inquisition, the pretence of appropriating to pious uses was presumably a mere device for embezzling them. The Suprema evidently had no doubts as to this, when the inquisitors of Barcelona, in the case of Pirro de Gonzaga, imposed a penance of three hundred ducats and appropriated twenty-five to the convent of N. Señora de los Angeles, twenty-five to the nuns of San Gerónimo and the remainder to beds and garments for the poor. It told them, in 1568, that all fines were for the expenses of the Inquisition and required them, within thirty days, to furnish authentic evidence of the disposition made of the two hundred and fifty ducats, under pain of rigorous proceedings against them.[1138] As for holding the notaries responsible, there was manifest injustice in this, for they were powerless to prevent fraud by the inquisitors. In 1525, some instructions to the tribunal of Sicily mention that the notary had repeatedly and vainly requested that notice be given to him of all penances, in order that he might charge them to the receiver.[1139] How reckless sometimes were the inquisitors appears in the case of the murder of Juan Antonio Managat, deputy receiver at Puycerda. In 1565 the three Barcelona inquisitors inflicted on the accused certain heavy fines which were duly collected and placed in the coffer with three keys, after which they coolly helped themselves to a thousand reales apiece, under pretext that it was for fees in trying the case. On this being discovered, in the inspection by de Soto Salazar, the Suprema ordered the money to be returned to the coffer and satisfactory evidence of the restitution to be furnished within thirty days.[1140]

* * * * *

The distinction between the confiscations and the fines and penances was rigidly maintained when both were concentrated in the hands of the receiver. A special commission was issued to authorize him to receive the latter[1141] and he was straitly instructed to keep the accounts separate. The confiscations were devoted to salaries and, if there was an overplus, to investments of a more or less permanent character, while the fines and penances were levied, as the formula of the sentences habitually expressed it, for the gastos extraordinarios--the other and extraordinary expenses of the tribunals. Still, when the confiscations ran short, there was no hesitation in drawing upon the other fund, although a special order of the Suprema was necessary for its authorization. Ayudas de costa were generally drawn from the fines and penances, though frequently the receiver is told to pay them out of any funds in hand.[1142] In 1525, Manrique directed the house-rents of the officials to be paid from the fines and penances; in 1540 Tavera granted, from the same fund in Valencia, three thousand sueldos to the nunnery of Santa Julia as the dowry of a reconciled Morisca, placed there to save her soul; in 1543 he calls upon the receiver of Granada to furnish, from the same source, two hundred ducats to Juan Martínez Lassao, secretary of the Suprema, on the occasion of his marriage; in 1557 the inquisitors of Saragossa were allowed, in the same manner, to defray the cost of alterations in the Aljafería.[1143] In short, this fund was expected to meet the innumerable miscellaneous expenses of the tribunals and to supply all deficiencies, rendering the inquisitors watchful to keep it abundantly supplied.

There were occasions when penances replaced confiscations, to the manifest advantage of the tribunals. Thus, in 1519, when the estate of Fernando de Villareal was subject to confiscation, Charles V authorized the inquisitors to impose on him such penance as they deemed fit and released to him the surplus. It is not likely that this surplus was allowed to be large for, when in 1535, the tribunal of Valencia was trying the Bachiller Molina and learned that the viceroy had promised Molina's wife that, in case of confiscation, he would ask the emperor to forego it, the inquisitors wrote to the Suprema that they proposed not to confiscate his property but to impose a penance of something less than its value.[1144] This indicates that the penances were not subject to the crown and thus it exposes the disingenuousness of the Suprema, in replying to a petition of Valencia, in the Córtes of Monzon in 1537, that the Inquisition should be restrained from penancing the Moriscos. It argued that these pecuniary penances were applied to the royal treasury and that his majesty should not be asked to remit them, or be required to supplicate the pope to revoke what the canons prescribe.[1145]

[Sidenote: REPLACE CONFISCATION]

The canons prescribed confiscation, but there was no hesitation, as we have just seen, in substituting penance. The largest scale on which this was tried was in the kingdoms of Aragon, where the Moriscos were mostly vassals of the gentry and nobles, who suffered when they were impoverished and their lands were taken. The fueros of Valencia provided that feudal lands confiscated, whether for heresy or other cause, should revert to the lord, and this was repeatedly sworn to by Ferdinand and Charles, but the Inquisition calmly disregarded all laws and insisted on confiscating for its own benefit. Even a brief of Paul III, August 2, 1546, decreeing that for ten years and subsequently, at the pleasure of the Holy See, there should be no confiscations or pecuniary penances inflicted on the Moriscos, received no attention and the practical answer to the remonstrances of the Córtes of 1564 was a specific instruction from the Suprema to the Valencia tribunal to go on confiscating, no matter what the people might say about their privileges.[1146] Aragon, meanwhile, had obtained, in 1534, a pragmática by which Charles renounced his right to the Morisco confiscations, which were to revert to the heirs or be distributed as intestate, and to this the assent of the Suprema was secured. This was, however, practically nullified for, in 1547, the Córtes complained that confiscations were replaced by penances greater than the wealth of the culprits, who were obliged to sell all their property and, in addition, to impoverish their kindred, to which the Suprema loftily replied that, if any one was aggrieved, he could appeal to it or to the inquisitors.[1147]

A lucrative bargain was finally made with Valencia, which had the largest Morisco population. In 1537 the Córtes proposed that, for a payment of 400 ducats a year, the Inquisition should abstain from penancing the Moriscos, but the Suprema refused, on the ground that it would be a disservice to God. It was shrewd in this for, in 1571, it secured an agreement under which, for an annual payment of 50,000 sueldos (2500 ducats) it abandoned confiscation and limited penance to 10 ducats, the payment of which was rendered secure by levying it on the aljamas of the culprits.[1148] Favorable as was this, the inquisitors did not restrain themselves to its observance. In the auto de fe of January 7, 1607, there was a penance of 50 ducats, one of 30 and one of 20 and, while there were only eight reconciliations, there were twenty penances of 10 ducats. The Suprema took exception to this, saying that, without reconciliation, the fines were uncalled for, in the absence of some special offence.[1149] The agreement, in fact, was one under which the gains of the tribunal were limited only by its industry, for there was no lack of Morisco apostates. The little village of Mislata, near the city, must have been well-nigh bankrupted, for it was liable for the penances of its inhabitants, of whom there were eighty-three penanced in 1591 and seventeen in 1592.[1150]

* * * * *

As confiscations diminished throughout Spain, the unrestricted power to impose fines and penances came in opportunely to fill deficiencies. They could be levied in a vast variety of cases--not only for suspicion of heresy and for fautorship, but for bigamy, blasphemy, ill-sounding expressions and all offences against the tribunal and its officials, as well as for those of the officials themselves and the familiars. The temporal jurisdiction especially afforded large opportunities, for the defendant, whether he was a familiar or an outsider, could always be fined for the benefit of the tribunal and this was rarely omitted. It was no secret within the Holy Office that this discretional power was to be exercised, not in accordance with the merits of the case, but with the needs of the Inquisition. As early as 1538, this was intimated in the instructions to Inquisitor Valdeolite of Navarre, when sent on a visitation to investigate witchcraft. He was forbidden to inflict confiscations but was told that he could impose fines and penances, in proportion to the offences and wealth of the culprits, in order to meet expenses and enable the receiver to pay salaries.[1151] In time the Suprema grew more outspoken. A carta acordada of October 22, 1575 told inquisitors that they could impose pecuniary penalties while on visitations, as well as when sitting in the tribunal, and must bear in mind the poverty of the Suprema as well as the wealth of the culprits and the character of the offence. This was repeated in 1580, and in 1595 attention was called to the necessity of relieving the wants of the Inquisition in this manner, an exhortation repeated in 1624.[1152]

[Sidenote: PRODUCTIVENESS]

This stimulation was apparently superfluous, for the inquisitors exploited their powers in this respect to a degree that sometimes moved even the Suprema to reproof. In a visitation of Gerona and Elne by Doctor Zurita of Barcelona, in 1564, we find him inflicting fines and penances continually, of 4, 6, 10, 20, 30 or 100 ducats, apparently limited only by the means of the victim. His colleague, Dr. Mexia, on a visitation penanced Damian Cortes in 100 ducats because, thirty years before, when some one told him to trust in God, he had exclaimed "Trust in God! By trusting in God last year I lost 50 ducats" and, when Juan Barbero made a comment on this sentence, he was fined 20 ducats and costs. When this last exploit was reported by de Soto Salazar, the Suprema ordered the fines to be refunded, as it also did with those inflicted by Mexia, of 60, 40 and 15 ducats, on the Bayle of Vindoli and two jurados for an offence so trifling that their names were ordered to be stricken from the records. When sitting as a tribunal these inquisitors were even more liberal to themselves, for they fined the Abbot of Ripoll 400 ducats for keeping a nun as a mistress--an offence wholly outside of their jurisdiction.[1153] As late as 1687, the tribunal of Logroño furnished a flagrant instance of this abuse of arbitrary power, when it excommunicated and fined in 200 ducats D. Miguel Urban de Espinosa, a Knight of Santiago and familiar, because, when summoned to attend at the publication of the Edict of Faith, he sought to enter the church while wearing a sword. The inquisitor-general promptly ordered his absolution and suspended the fine until further information.[1154]

The receipts from penances, although fluctuating, were a substantial addition to income. In the Seville auto de fe of May 13, 1585, a penitent accused of Lutheranism was penanced in 100 ducats, a bigamist in 200, provided it did not exceed half his property; for asserting fornication to be no sin one man was penanced in 200 ducats or less, according to his wealth, another in 200 and two in 1000 maravedís apiece, while, for concealing heretics, there was a penance of 50 ducats. In all, the auto yielded 850 ducats and 2000 maravedís.[1155] Even more productive was the auto of June 14, 1579, at Llerena, where the tribunal harvested 626,000 maravedís and 2700 ducats, or about 4375 ducats in all--owing to some of the penitents being well-to-do ecclesiastics, given to Illuminism.[1156] Toledo, in 1604, imposed a penance of 3000 ducats on Giraldo Paris, a German of Madrid, guilty of sundry heretical propositions, including the assertion that St. Job was an alchemist.[1157] The same tribunal, in 1649 and 1650, penanced four persons engaged in endeavoring to shield a Judaizer, two of them 500 and the other two 300 ducats apiece. In 1654, again, in two autos, November 8th and December 27th, it realized a total of 4000 ducats. After this it had occasional good fortune and, in 1669, it was supremely lucky in a rich penitent, Don Alonso Sanchez, priest and physician to the Cuenca tribunal, whom it convicted of fautorship and penanced in the large sum of 13,000 ducats.[1158] In 1654, Cuenca realized 2250 ducats, besides thirteen confiscations, from its auto of June 29th.[1159] Córdova was more fortunate, in an auto of May 3, 1655, when a group of wealthy Judaizers and their friends yielded an aggregate of 7000 ducats.[1160]

In addition to this source of revenue from penance imposed on penitents there were the fines inflicted in the exercise of the secular jurisdiction of the Inquisition. How liberally this power was exercised, even when the delinquents were officials, is seen in the defence offered by the Suprema, in 1632, when strenuous complaints were made about the familiars of Valencia. It instanced the case of Jaime Blau, who was fined 600 libras, half to the complainant and half to the fisc; Vicente de San German fined 300 libras; Hierónimo Llodra, 500 ducats; Pedro Carbonel, 500 ducats; Tomás Real, 300 ducats; Miguel Rubio, 400 libras, and Hierónimo Pilart, 500 libras.[1161] Doubtless through these inflictions the culprits escaped corporal punishments much less endurable, and they serve to explain the persistent multiplication of familiars, coupled with disregard of the character of the appointees. It was the same with outsiders who were prosecuted for offences against officials, as when, in 1565, Don Tristan de Urria of Saragossa was fined 60 ducats for insulting a notary.[1162]

[Sidenote: LUCRATIVE RESULTS]

In the seventeenth century the Suprema claimed these fines as its special perquisite. When Jaime Blau, for instance, was mulcted in 300 ducats for the fisc, no sooner was the Suprema apprised of it than it ordered the amount to be remitted at once, and the length of correspondence which ensued indicates that this was a novelty submitted to unwillingly.[1163] Even a fine of 100 libras, imposed on Ignacio Navarro, in 1636, was called for immediately and remitted, as was also soon afterwards 100 ducats with which he purchased his pardon; as he was forthwith arrested again for murdering Don Juan Augustin Saluco, he probably yielded another series of fines.[1164] In the extreme exigencies of the royal treasury, the king claimed a portion of these receipts and, by a decree of September 30, 1639, he ordered one-fourth of all fines for secular offences to be paid to the official designated to receive the fines of the royal courts.[1165]

In the unscrupulous exercise of discretional power, fines and penances were frequently imposed beyond the culprit's ability to pay, and inquisitors had a habit of adding in the sentence the alternative of some corporal punishment, such as the galleys, scourging or vergüenza, with the object of inducing the kindred to contribute, in order to avert from the family the shame of the public infliction. The Instructions of 1561 strictly forbid this cruelty; the sentences are to be without condition or alternative and inability to pay is not to be thus visited.[1166] This received scant obedience. In 1568 it was the ordinary practice of the Barcelona tribunal to enforce payment of its arbitrary impositions by the alternative of such punishment.[1167] About 1640, however, we are told by an inquisitor that the question was evaded by the prudent custom of sending poor men to the galleys and reserving pecuniary penance for the wealthy.[1168]

In fact, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of such penances diminished and they are usually for larger amounts. In a record of the autos de fe of Toledo, from 1648 to 1794, there is but one that is less than 100 ducats and that one is for 50. In all there are but sixty-four penances imposed up to 1742 and none subsequently. The aggregate is 30,600 ducats, besides fourteen of half the property of the culprit.[1169] Whether from a growing sense of their indecency or from a lack of material, the custom of imposing pecuniary penances rapidly declined in the eighteenth century. In a collection of sixty-six autos de fe, between 1721 and 1745, comprising in all 962 cases, there is not a single pecuniary penance.[1170] Fines, however, continued to be imposed to the last. March 27, 1816, Pasqual Franchini of Madrid, for possessing two indecent pictures, was fined 100 ducats and, as these are defined as applicable to the royal treasury, it would appear that the crown had absorbed this trifling source of revenue.[1171]

In this matter the Roman Inquisition offered a creditable contrast to the Spanish. Except in Milan, Cremona and other places under Spanish rule, pecuniary punishments were rarely to be inflicted; the assent of the Congregation of cardinals was required, and they were at once to be distributed in pious uses, of which a strict account was required. Thus in 1595, one of 4000 crowns was given to the poor of Genoa and, in the same year at Naples, one of 400 crowns was parcelled out among the charitable establishments. Even this was felt to derogate from the character of the Holy Office and, in 1632, Urban VIII decreed that papal confirmation must be had in each case and, at the same time, he withdrew the special privileges of the Milanese tribunals.[1172] So strong was the disgust felt in Rome for this commercialized zeal for the faith that, when the Fiscal Cabrera was there representing the Inquisition, in the case of Villanueva, and Arce y Reynoso sent to him, for presentation to the pope, a report of an auto celebrated by the tribunal of Santiago, with the expectation of arousing his sympathy for an institution that was doing so much for religion, Cabrera replied, January 6, 1656, that he would not present it without special orders. Alexander VII, he said, disliked pecuniary penalties in matters of faith, and there were some of these in the report; his Holiness had already spoken to him on the subject and it was wiser not to call his attention to it afresh.[1173]

III. DISPENSATIONS

The Roman curia had so long accustomed Christendom to the idea that pardon for the consequences of sin was purchasable, that we cannot be surprised if relief from the penalties imposed by the Inquisition was a marketable commodity to be regarded as a source of revenue. We have already seen this exemplified in the compositions for confiscation, and it was carried out with regard to the more personal inflictions prescribed by canon and municipal law--the disabilities of culprits and their descendants alluded to above (p. 287). The Instructions of 1484 and 1488 adopted these and extended the sumptuary regulations by including the carrying of arms and riding on horseback; they enlarged the list of prohibited callings and applied them all to the descendants of those who were burnt in person or effigy. Then Ferdinand and Isabella, by pragmáticas in 1501, made the prohibition of office-holding and the following of numerous trades and professions a matter of municipal law, reserving the right to grant relief by royal licences. Thus these disabilities, which weighed cruelly upon penitents and their descendants, drew their origin from different sources. The sumptuary restrictions, which came to be known as cosas arbitrarias, were considered to be the act of the tribunal, which could remove them. Permission to hold office, or to follow the inhibited callings, was a royal prerogative, while the Holy See, as the guardian of the faith and of the canon law, and as the supreme source of inquisitorial jurisdiction, claimed a general control, which was grudgingly conceded.

In addition to these disabilities were the personal punishments, relief from which was claimed by the Inquisition. Those which concern us here were the galleys, exile, imprisonment and the wearing of the sanbenito or "habito"--a kind of yellow tunic with a red St. Andrew's cross--a mark of infamy and a severe infliction, as it largely impeded the efforts of the penitent to gain a livelihood.

The curia was not long in recognizing the abundant market opened for its dispensations by the large numbers of those subjected to disabilities. In the Taxes of the Penitentiary there was inserted a clause offering the fullest possible dispensation for "Marrania." To a cleric the price was 60 gros tournois, or 15 ducats; to a layman 40 gros, or 10 ducats, besides a fee to the datary of 20 gros. When the dispensation was partial, allowing a layman to follow his accustomed calling, or a priest to celebrate mass, the charge was 12 gros, or 3 ducats, but, if the profession was that of a physician or advocate, the charge was double.[1174]

We have seen the extreme jealousy which existed as to any papal interference with the Inquisition and Ferdinand's repeated efforts to suppress papal letters, but the power to issue these dispensations could not be questioned. Cardinal Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo, held from Innocent VIII a faculty to grant rehabilitations, and one of these, issued to Pero Díaz of Cifuentes, whose mother had been burnt, was recognized and confirmed, in 1520, by the Suprema and Charles V.[1175] At the same time, the Inquisition claimed the right to control relief from the punishments which it inflicted, and it held these favors at a far higher price than the cheap papal dispensations. Anchias, the secretary of the Saragossa tribunal, tells us how Juan Gerónimo was sentenced to wear the sanbenito and carried it for a long time, until his father paid for him to the tribunal a thousand florins for permission to abandon it. Some of the gold proved to be of light weight and eighteen or twenty florins were demanded of him to make good the deficiency, when he handed them to the messenger saying "How is this? Are not the señores well paid for the merchandise they sold me? But take it and welcome."[1176] When exactions on this scale were possible, we can readily believe that Dr. Guiral, the embezzling inquisitor of Córdova, could easily secrete a hundred and fifty thousand maravedís from the dispensations sold to the wearers of the sanbenito (Vol. I, p. 190), nor can we wonder that the Holy Office was resolved to maintain a hold on so prolific a source of gain.

[Sidenote: CONTEST WITH THE CROWN]

The situation was complicated by the pretensions of the sovereigns to intervene and claim their share, and this they sought to establish by procuring from Alexander VI a brief of February 18, 1495, which recites that the inquisitors collect various sums from those who had obtained papal rehabilitations and retained them; all such moneys theretofore and thereafter received for commutations and rehabilitations were to be placed at the disposal of the sovereigns, under pain of ipso facto excommunication.[1177] It is obvious from this that the papal dispensations were not admitted without the exaction of further payments; that the pope was content with this, so long as the taxes of the Penitentiary were paid in Rome, and that Ferdinand was concerned only with the destination of the proceeds and was quite willing to acknowledge the papal authority when it was exercised for his benefit. He lost no time in availing himself of the papal grant on a large scale and, before the year was out, we find him selling relief in mass to all those disabled by the tribunal of Toledo, a transaction which brought in large returns for, in 1497, Alonso de Morales, the royal treasurer, acknowledges the receipt of 6,499,028 maravedís from Toledo commutations and rehabilitations, and this was doubtless only one of numerous similar compositions.[1178]

The Inquisition was not disposed to abandon its profitable commerce. The Suprema continued to assert its control, in instructions, June 3, 1497, ordering inquisitors to take no fees for rehabilitations without consulting it; May 25, 1498, it declared that if there were no inquisitors-general there would be no one able to grant rehabilitation or to relieve from sanbenitos, and it forbade the tribunals to commute for imprisonment except by spiritual penances.[1179] There was evidently a contest on foot between the Inquisition and Ferdinand, of which the details are lost, for we have a letter from him, February 24, 1498, to a tribunal in which he says "You know that we have granted a privilege through which the children of condemned heretics are rehabilitated as to the cosas arbitrarias imposed by you. As it is our will that this privilege be maintained, we charge you not to levy or take anything from them for the enjoyment of it and if, perchance, the inquisitors-general have written or shall write anything contrary to this, consult us before acting on it and we will write to them and to you what most comports with our service."[1180]

The sovereigns, however, yielded the point when, by a cédula of January 12, 1499, they formally made over to the inquisitors-general all the moneys accruing from penances, commutations and rehabilitations in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, in order to provide for the salaries, but this grant as usual was practically subject to the exigencies of the royal treasury and the promise was irregularly kept.[1181] The inquisitors seem to have speedily arrogated to themselves this profitable privilege, for the Instructions of 1500 forbid them to grant dispensations and commutations, the right to which is reserved to the inquisitors-general.[1182] It was greatly impaired, however, by the next move in the game, the pragmáticas of 1501, which made disability to hold office or to follow numerous callings a matter of municipal law and reserved to the crown the right to issue licences in derogation of it, thus depriving the Inquisition of control over this important section of the penalties.

[Sidenote: PAPAL COMPETITION]

While Ferdinand thus secured a share in the business, he fully admitted the necessity of papal rehabilitation as a condition precedent. In 1510, writing to a member of the Suprema about the rehabilitation of the Jurado Alonso de Medina, issued at the request of Queen Juana, he says that it was granted under the belief that Medina held a papal brief; if he did not, it was invalid as there must first be papal rehabilitation. Yet papal action amounted to nothing in these matters without the royal licence. About this time the Licenciado Portillo applied to him stating that, as the memory of his grandfather had been condemned, he was incapacitated from holding office; he had been rehabilitated by the pope and now he asked for a licence in view of certain services rendered, and Ferdinand granted the prayer. The strictness with which these licences were construed is illustrated by a petition, in 1515, from Dr. Jaime de Lis, a physician of Logroño, representing that, by the condemnation of his parents, he had been incapacitated; he had procured a papal brief authorizing him to practice everywhere, and a royal licence to practice in Logroño. Unable to resist importunities, he had exceeded his bounds, for which he craved pardon and also permission to attend the Duke of Najera, who joined in the supplication. This was granted, with a warning not to transgress again, and the tribunal of Calahorra and the magistrates of all the towns were charged to make him observe the limits.[1183]

When the papal dispensation was issued to ecclesiastics, the king did not intervene, but there can be no doubt that the vidimus, or confirmation of the Suprema, was required and had to be paid for, for it had, on January 8 and February 12, 1498, summoned all reconciled penitents to present the absolutions and dispensations which they had procured from Rome, a significant indication that otherwise they would not be respected.[1184] Such dispensations were issued as readily as those to laymen, though, as we have seen, the price was fifty per cent. higher. Thus, April 8, 1514, Leo X dispensed Cristóbal Rodrigo, priest of Luduena, from the disabilities incurred by the condemnation of his parents and authorized him to retain his benefices, acquire others and perform all his functions. So also, November 3, 1514, he dispensed Bartolomé Eruelo, beneficed in the convent of Santa Cruz of Saragossa, from all the disabilities resulting from the heresy of his paternal grandfather.[1185]

Yet there frequently occur cases of rehabilitation in which there is no mention of papal intervention, under circumstances where it could scarce fail to be alluded to had it existed.[1186] There would seem to have been no thought of invoking the co-operation of the Holy See in the great composition of Seville, under which twenty thousand ducats were obtained by Ferdinand for the rehabilitations alone and, when it was extended to Córdova and other places, they formed part of the inducements offered.[1187] So, when Cardinal Manrique issued by wholesale licences to hold office, to the large districts of Seville, Córdova, Granada and Leon, there is no allusion to papal dispensations. For some reason, probably financial, these licences were issued for short terms and required renewal; in one case, a document, issued in February, 1528, prolonged the time to April 15th and then, on April 6th, it was extended to the end of June.[1188]

This disregard of papal participation seems to have provoked the curia to retaliatory action, and it issued rehabilitations with clauses of censures and penalties for all who might impede them, thus rendering unnecessary the concurrence of the king and the Inquisition. Charles thereupon reissued the pragmáticas of 1501 and empowered the Inquisition to enforce them, while the Suprema explained to the tribunals that there was a disability under the canons and another under the pragmáticas, so that the papal rehabilitation was insufficient without the royal and vice versa, wherefore inquisitors were instructed to look closely into this and prosecute those who did not possess both. It withdrew however from this position and issued cartas acordadas May 15, 1530 and May 16, 1531, complaining of this new form of papal dispensations. If these were allowed to continue, it said, all the disabled would be rehabilitated and the laws of the kingdom would be annulled, wherefore, when such letters were presented, the fiscal was ordered to draw up a supplication to the pope setting forth that the disabilities were enacted by the laws of the land and that it had been found by experience that these children of heretics, if they obtain judicial positions, condemn Christians to death unjustly, or, if they become physicians, surgeons or apothecaries, give their patients poisons in place of remedies. All these supplications were to be sent to the Suprema, which would forward them to the Roman agent of the Inquisition--and meanwhile, we may assume, the papal letters were suspended. In another document of the period, opposition to the papal rehabilitations is enumerated as one of the regular duties of the fiscal. It is somewhat remarkable that this seems to have been confined to Castile for, in 1535, the Suprema learned that the Valencia tribunal accepted and respected papal rehabilitations and hastened to instruct it to follow the Castilian method. The struggle continued and the instructions of 1531 were repeated July 19 and October 26, 1543 and May 14, 1546.[1189]

[Sidenote: PAPAL COMPETITION]

The strenuous days of Ferdinand were past and resistance was vain. The curia continued imperturbably to sell dispensations of the most liberal character which completely annulled Spanish legislation. One bearing the name of Paul III, February 1, 1545, issued to Juan de Haro of Jaen, whose grandparents had been burnt in effigy, gives assurance of his high deserts and concedes that, even if his progenitors had been condemned and burnt, he can ascend to the degrees of bachelor, licentiate and doctor; he can assume the office of judge, corregidor, advocate, procurator and notary, legate, nuncio, physician, surgeon, apothecary, farmer of revenue, collector and receiver of taxes and all honors and dignities, including professorial chairs; he can wear garments of any color and material, ornaments of gold and silver and jewels; he can bear arms and ride on horses and mules, inherit from any kindred, acquire property of all kinds, enter the priesthood and obtain any dignity or preferment, and all inquisitors and secular powers are forbidden to interfere with him in the enjoyment of these privileges.[1190] This is evidently the customary formula of these dispensations, and it was galling to have the laws of the land and the jurisdiction of the Inquisition thus calmly set at naught, but there was no help for it. Sometimes, however, the recipients of these papal rehabilitations deemed it wise to show humility, in which case they were fairly assured of a benignant reception. In 1548, the Saragossa tribunal penanced for fautorship five hidalgos, vassals of the Count of Ribagorza, in a way disabling them from holding office. They procured letters from Rome, but submitted them to the Suprema and declined to use them, whereupon Valdés told the inquisitors to follow the letters and dispense the penitents from their disabilities.[1191]

Roman competition, however, by no means destroyed the home traffic in dispensations. Whatever was imposed by the inquisitors could be removed by the inquisitors-general, as when Valdés, May 27, 1551, granted licence to Leandro de Loriz to accept the position of assessor to the bayle of Valencia after he had been disabled by the tribunal from holding any office of justice.[1192] When, however, disabilities were the result of the pragmáticas, it was recognized that their removal was a function of the crown. Thus, in 1549, the Suprema expresses pleasure that those reconciled under an Edict of Grace should procure rehabilitations from the king and, in 1564, it explains that the dispensations granted by the inquisitor-general only relate to the sumptuary cosas arbitrarias, so that those obtaining them who exceed in this are to be prosecuted.[1193] The functions of the Inquisition thus were restricted to enabling the disabled to wear costly apparel and jewels, to bear arms and ride. These, which were known as dispensations "en lo arbitrario" were in great demand and a brisk business was done in them. In the records of course there is nothing said about their being sold, or the prices paid for them, which were doubtless proportioned to the station or wealth of the penitent or of his kindred, but that they were articles of traffic is shown by their being frequently given as gratifications to the lower officials, issued in blank, to be disposed of at the best price that could be had.[1194] So customary, indeed, became the issue of these dispensations that, towards the close of the sixteenth century, Peña closes his remarks on disabilities by saying that, after a time, it is usual to dispense for them.[1195]

The rehabilitation for holding office and trading was likewise a source of profit to the crown and its officials. The sale of these became so general that, in 1552, it formed a subject of complaint by the Córtes of Madrid, which represented that the children and grandchildren of condemned heretics were rich and obtained rehabilitations from the king, in contravention of the pragmáticas, to the great detriment of the Republic. To the petition that this should cease the reply was that the supplication would be borne in mind and the pragmáticas be observed.[1196] That this promise was kept may well be doubted, especially as, in time, the curia abandoned its claim to issue dispensations of this nature. When, in 1603 and 1604, several applications for such a grace were made to it, the Congregation of the Inquisition refused to interfere.[1197]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: COMMUTATIONS]

The curia had never assumed to interfere with the commutation or redemption of the punishments inflicted by the Inquisition. In these it therefore had a free hand, and the resultant revenue must have been important, for it was always ready to show mercy for a reasonable consideration. The speculative value of such commutations were recognized, at least as early as 1498, when they were already regarded as a regular source of income, for Juan de Monasterio was then characterized as inquisitor of Valencia and receiver of penances and commutations.[1198] In 1524 we find Manrique commissioning Francisco de Salmeron to collect from the receivers of the tribunals all "penas y penitencias, conmutaciones y habilidades" and a similar grouping in 1540 and 1544 shows that they all continued to be sources contributing to a common fund.[1199]

Of these punishments the one most productive and most commonly commuted was the sanbenito or penitential habit, release from which in the early period, as we have seen, was reckoned, in one case at least, at a thousand gold florins. The severity of the infliction is well set forth in the petition, about 1560, of "lo povero Notar Jacobo Damiano" to the Sicilian tribunal. He says that he has tried in every way to earn a living without success, and his only resource is a return to his birth-place, Racalmuto, where his family will aid in his support and he can end the few days that remain to his age and infirmities, but, as his kindred are persons of honor, if he comes with the sanbenito they will drive him away and leave him to die of starvation. He therefore begs to have the habit commuted to a money payment for the redemption of captives and some other penance, and he will raise the amount from his family; otherwise he is in peril of death from want, as he is abandoned by all.[1200] What between the degradation and the impediment to winning a livelihood, those subjected to the penalty and their kindred were likely to pay whatever sum they could afford for release. It was commonly coupled with imprisonment--the "carcel y abito" usually went together and commutation covered both.

As a rule, inquisitors were prohibited from granting these commutations--the temptation to retain the proceeds was doubtless too great. In 1513 Ximenes, on learning that some inquisitors were doing so, forbade it for the future and reserved the right to the inquisitor-general.[1201] There were some exceptions however, especially in the case of distant tribunals, as in a commission granted to Sicily in 1519, to Navarre in 1520, and a limited one to Majorca in 1523.[1202] As a rule all applications were submitted to the Suprema, which gave the necessary instructions and directed the money to be remitted to it, or to be held subject to its order for pious uses.[1203] Its full realization of the financial possibilities of the matter is seen in instructions, in 1519, to Barcelona--and doubtless to the other tribunals--to report how many penitents were wearing sanbenitos and how much could be obtained from them for commutations.[1204] When conviction would bring not only confiscation but the prospect of another contribution from the kindred, it will be realized how great was the temptation to severity.

The "pious uses" for which the payments were ostensibly received were various. Doctor Arganda, Inquisitor of Cuenca, in rendering, May 9, 1585, a statement revealing a deficit in revenue, renewed a request of the month previous, that the Suprema would grant to the tribunal the commutations of Francisco Abist and Juan Joaibet, Moriscos; they were very old, had been sentenced ten years before, and would die Moors; therefore it would be well that the tribunal should have the benefit of the four thousand reales which they offered. The Suprema replied with an inquiry whether this was the utmost that could be obtained from them. Then on August 9th the inquisitor urged the acceptance of the offer, so that the money could be used for a much needed prison for familiars and other purposes, and reminded the Suprema that, in 1583, it had made a similar grant of commutations for a building.[1205] Another pious use was giving to Dr. Ortiz, when sent to Sicily as inquisitor, in 1541, certain commutations as part of his salary. They must have been considerable, for the fees accruing on them to Secretary Zurita amounted to fifty-five ducats.[1206] Still another pious use is indicated in an order from the Suprema, in 1549, to the tribunal of Granada, to commute the sanbenito of Catalina Ramírez into spiritual works and such pecuniary penance as she could pay for pious uses. The latter are explained, in an accompanying private note of instruction, to hold the money until the apparitor Cuebas marries his daughter, when he is to be aided with it. He evidently had petitioned for a "comutacion de abito" and it was accorded in this form.[1207]

[Sidenote: COMMUTATIONS]

These commutations, in fact, became a sort of currency in which favors were asked and granted, replacing, to some extent, the confiscations of an earlier period. Thus, in 1589, the Valencia convent of the new Discalced Carmelites of Santa Teresa petitioned for the grant of the commutations of certain sanbenitos and soon afterwards the Dominican convent made a similar request.[1208] The most usual pious work, however, for which they were ostensibly employed, was in assisting the redemption of captives. Yet this formula frequently covered other destinations, as in the case of Martin de Burguera of Calatayud, who was relieved of prison and sanbenito for fifteen ducats "para reducion de cautivos" and the ducats were simultaneously granted to Pedro Salvan, apparitor of the Saragossa tribunal.[1209] When the proceeds were really to be employed for the redemption of captives, precautions were taken to see that they were so applied. These are expressed, January 18, 1559, by Valdés to Horozco de Arce, Inquisitor of Sicily, when empowering him to grant commutations to four penitents, provided their sentences are not irremissible and they have completed three years of imprisonment, when, besides the money payment, there are to be simple penances of fasting, prayer and pilgrimage. The penitents are to be designated by Nicolas Calderon or his agent, who will bargain as to the amounts of payment, and the money is to be given to him for the ransom of his mother, sister and two nieces, on his furnishing good security that, within a term to be designated by the inquisitor, he will present them to the tribunal or refund the money.[1210] The condition in this, that the penalty commuted must not be irremissible, was not always observed. Such sentences, as we shall see, were reserved for cases of special guilt, but they yielded to the powerful solvent of money, a larger price presumably being demanded. Thus March 7, 1560, the Sicilian inquisitor was ordered to select some one who had served not less than nine years under such a sentence and commute it for the ransom of the wife of ---- of Cibdadella.[1211]

Even the galleys, which were regarded as a much severer punishment than the "carcel y abito," were commutable, though, as the prisoner was an incumbrance, while the galley-slave was useful and the supply was always deficient, we may infer that his commutation was held at a higher price. Condemnation to the galleys was also much less frequent than to the sanbenito, and of course was only inflicted on able-bodied men, so that cases of its commutation do not occur in such abundance. Yet they were sufficiently numerous to lead to complaint by the Suprema to Charles V, in 1528, that when it sent messengers to liberate those whose sentences were thus commuted, the commanders of the galleys refused to surrender them, whereupon Charles issued a cédula ordering their liberation under pain of two thousand florins.[1212]

[Sidenote: COMMUTATIONS]

Commutations for the galleys had various shapes. In 1543, Don Luis Muñoz, Lord of Ayodan, offered two slaves as substitutes for two of his Morisco vassals, Juan Maymon and Juan Muñoz, condemned to serve, the one for ten and the other for twelve years, of which three had elapsed and, after investigation to see that the substitutes were able-bodied, the bargain was closed. In 1547, Miguel Mercado obtained the remainder of his sentence to the galleys commuted to service on the French border, when presumably there was some money consideration.[1213] It is probable that commutations for money became too frequent for the good of the naval service, for in 1556 the Suprema strictly forbade them for the future, doubtless under royal command.[1214] This prohibition seems to have lasted for a considerable time, as the Spanish armada was greatly in need of men and we happen not to meet with cases until near the close of the century, when they reappear in the Valencia records. In 1590, Jusepe Gacet, a familiar condemned for the murder of his wife, obtained a commutation of his sentence. In 1596, a New Christian, Gaspar Moix, negotiated for release from the three years which he still had to serve and, after investigation into his means, it was fixed at seven hundred libras and a slave. Moix, however, on his liberation, found that his sanbenito was not included in the bargain and he had to pay a hundred libras more for its removal. In 1597, Onufre Quintana offered two thousand reales and a slave which were accepted. In the same year Miguel Saucer applied for a commutation, when the Suprema instructed the tribunal to ascertain what he would pay for it and the same answer was given, in 1600, to a similar petition from Jaime Cornexo.[1215] It is apparent from the high value set on these mercies that comparatively few convicts could afford their purchase.

Evidently the Suprema paid little heed to the instructions of Philip II to Manrique de Lara, in 1595, to be very cautious in granting dispensations for galleys, exile, reclusion and sanbenitos; there must be ample cause and no attention should be paid to prayers, and favors, for it was essential that sentences should be completely executed. This was repeated, with some amplification, by Carlos II, in 1695, showing that there was still occasion to restrain the Holy Office from bartering pardons for money.[1216]

IV. BENEFICES

When the Inquisition was established, it was apparent that if its officials, or a portion of them, could be quartered on the Church there might be less diversion of the confiscations from the royal treasury. At the very commencement, in 1480, Ferdinand and Isabella obtained, from Sixtus IV, an indult authorizing them to present the four earliest inquisitors to benefices, of course without obligation to reside. As yet, however, the Inquisition had not inspired general terror, and the people refused to admit the intruders, whereupon the sovereigns provided them with four chaplaincies in the royal chapel.[1217] The attempt was not abandoned and, in the supplementary Instructions of December, 1484, Torquemada announced that it was the intention of the sovereigns to procure a papal indult authorizing them to bestow benefices, not only on the inquisitors but on all the clerics employed in the holy work.[1218] Something of the kind was evidently obtained for, when the Holy Office was organized, in 1485, under Torquemada, the brief confirming his appointment dispensed from residence all officials in its service who held or might thereafter obtain preferment; new appointees were released from the customary temporary residence, and all were assured of their full revenues without deduction, all apostolical and conciliar decrees to the contrary notwithstanding.[1219] There was nothing in this to shock public opinion, for the canon law permitted canons to be absent for study in any recognized university, and the enjoyment of benefices everywhere by the creatures of the curia was legalized by assuming service to the pope to be equivalent to service in a chapter.[1220] Yet the Spanish Church, apparently, was not disposed to submit quietly to this and its resistance may be assumed as the cause of another brief of Innocent VIII, February 8, 1486, which limited the grant to five years and required the beneficiary to supply a vicar to fill his place. At the same time it specified all officials, down to messengers and gaolers, as entitled to its benefits and provided for opposition by appointing the Bishops of Córdova and Leon and the Abbot of San Emiliano of Burgos as executors with full powers to suppress recalcitrants.[1221] When the five years expired, the indult was renewed for another five years and so it continued until the end of the Inquisition--the popes steadily refusing to prolong the term, as it gave them an important advantage, in their frequent collisions with the Spanish Holy Office, to say nothing of the fees consequent upon the issue of briefs so voluminous and so valuable.

The next step was to procure the power of presenting to benefices, and this was secured by another brief from Innocent VIII, in 1488, granting to the sovereigns the patronage of a prebend in each metropolitan, cathedral and collegiate church, excepting, in prudent deference to the Sacred College, those of which the bishops were also cardinals. Of this brief, Alonso de Burgos was made executor, enabling him to fulminate censures and take all necessary steps, until the appointee enjoyed pacific possession of his prebend. Under it Ferdinand and Isabella, on October 30th of the same year, made the first presentations, amounting to ten, six being inquisitors, two fiscals, one an apparitor and one designated merely as an official.[1222]

[Sidenote: OPPOSITION OF CHAPTERS]

This brief probably was good only for five years for, in 1494, the sovereigns obtained from Alexander VI another, with enlarged powers, of which Martin Ponce, Bishop of Avila, was executor. Under this, on April 11, 1495, they made twenty-four appointments, mostly inquisitors, but comprising seven fiscals, two members of the Suprema and two Roman agents of the Inquisition. Among the inquisitors we recognize the notorious Lucero and his predecessor in Córdova, the embezzling Dr. Guiral.[1223] It is probable that these briefs encountered resistance, for, in this latter case, we chance to hear of a prolonged struggle required to install Doctor Manuel Fernández Angulo of the Suprema in the Seville canonry given to him.[1224] Haughty canons of noble blood might well resent the intrusion of low-born officials such as Ferdinand sometimes thrust upon them. Thus, in 1499, on the death of Inquisitor Cevallos of Barcelona, his first appointee to a prebend in the church of Santa Ana, in the same city, he replaced him with Juan Moya, a simple tonsured clerk and gaoler of the tribunal, nor was this the only instance of such abuse of patronage.[1225] He also availed himself largely of the privilege of non-residence by appointing canons and other beneficed clerks to positions in the tribunals, and his letters of the period are numerous in which he notifies the chapters that their members have been thus drafted to the service of God, during which they are, under the papal letters, to be reckoned as present and are not to be deprived of any of the fruits of their preferment. So, when he drew the Licentiate Pero González Manso from the professorship of law in Valladolid, he told the college that the chair would be filled by a substitute at half-price during Manso's absence.[1226] Everything was subservient to the Inquisition and all other institutions were expected to minister to its needs.

When Julius II, November 16, 1505, renewed the quinquennial indult, he no longer appointed executors but empowered the inquisitor-general to coerce with censures the chapters to account for and pay over to the appointees the revenues of their benefices. It appears that they sometimes compelled the appointees to agree under oath that they would take only a portion of the fruits, for Julius pronounced such agreements to be void and released the incumbents from their oaths. This brief he repeated, September 8, 1508, with some additions, of which more hereafter.[1227] The opposition of the chapters, in fact, had in no way diminished and defeat only seemed to intensify their obstinacy. When, in 1501, Diego de Robles, fiscal of the Suprema, was granted a canonry in the church of Zamora, the persistence of the chapter carried the matter to Rome, where Gracian de Valdés, nephew of the bishop, boasted that he would get the pope to reserve the benefice to himself. It gave infinite vexation to Ferdinand, who wrote to the canons, July 24th that, if they did not admit Robles within three days, they must leave the city and present themselves before him within thirty days, under pain of forfeiture of citizenship and temporalities. Similar orders were sent to the provisor; the corregidor was commanded to see to their execution, while urgent letters were addressed to Rome to counteract the labors of Valdés. These vigorous measures brought the chapter to terms and Ferdinand, on September 2nd, accepted their submission, revoking their banishment to take effect after their giving possession to Robles.[1228] Simultaneously a similar quarrel was on foot with the chapter of Barcelona, over the grant of a canonry to the Inquisitor of Saragossa, who was already Archdeacon of Almazan, and this was likewise carried to Rome.[1229] So resolutely did the chapters resist the invasion of their rights that Enguera, Inquisitor-general of Aragon and Bishop of Lérida, in 1512, had to invoke both royal and papal authority to secure the revenues of benefices held by him in the churches of Tarragona and Lérida and, with regard to the latter, the pope was obliged to appoint executors to enforce his briefs.[1230]

If Ferdinand had expected, by this abuse of patronage, to lighten the burden of supporting the Inquisition, he was doomed to disappointment. He probably found that those, who thus obtained positions for life, could not be depended upon to perform gratuitous service in the tribunals. Their full salaries had to be paid and their benefices were only an extra gratification, so that his anxiety to secure these for them must be attributed to his desire to obtain able and vigorous men for the moderate remuneration provided by the pay-roll. When Pedro de Belorado was sent to Sicily, in 1501, as Archbishop of Messina and also as inquisitor, the receiver was ordered to continue to him the salary paid to his predecessor Sgalambro.[1231] So it continued. When, in 1540, Blas Ortiz was commissioned as inquisitor of Valencia, the orders were to pay him the regular salary of six thousand sueldos, although, as canon of Toledo, he possessed a handsome income.[1232]

[Sidenote: OPPOSITION OF CHAPTERS]

By this time these matters were in the hands of the Suprema, and its members and officials were too eager seekers after pluralities not to enforce the papal indults with vigor, giving rise to incessant struggles with recalcitrant churches. Thus, in 1546, when Pedro Ponce de Leon was made a member, he was maestre escuela in the church of Alcalá de Henares. There was trouble about his revenues for, on February 27, 1547, Valdés summoned the abbot and chapter to keep on paying him and expressed the hope that they would not compel him to resort to censures. Similar letters, about the same time, were issued in behalf of the private secretary of Valdés, Fortuno de Ibarquen, who was an insatiable pluralist, being Archdeacon of Sigüenza and canon in the churches of both Leon and Oviedo. Simultaneous were letters to the chapter of Segovia about the revenues of its dean and canon Miguel de Arena, who was Inquisitor of Seville, and to that of Sigüenza for its treasurer and canon, Menendo de Valdés, who was Inquisitor of Valladolid. A couple of months later there were letters to the chapter of Badajoz, about its canon Baltodano, who was Inquisitor of Toledo, and in August to the chapter of Majorca, about Joan García, who had been appointed consultor to the tribunal of Saragossa. In October prosecutions were commenced against the recalcitrant chapter of Leon, which had refused to pay the fruits of the canonries of Ibarguen and of Cervantes, the Inquisitor of Córdova.[1233]

It would be useless to multiply examples of this incessant strife, in which the chapters persistently, but unavailingly, sought to prevent the absorption of their revenues by the Holy Office. The resistance was hopeless for, even with the most resolute, it was only a question of time when opposition was broken down by excommunication and the summons to appear before the Suprema, while appeal to Rome was fruitless when it was the duty of the Spanish ambassador to watch for such cases and oppose them.[1234] Of course the greater number yielded without remonstrance and we hear only of those who dared to offer futile opposition.

It is observable that all the cases which thus come before us involve benefices without cure of souls. The papal indults comprised both those with and without such cure, and it is not to be supposed that the former were not extensively exploited, though we do not hear of them because, in such cases, there was no organized body to feel aggrieved and raise a contest. When came the Counter-reformation, the Council of Trent pronounced strongly against non-residence by beneficiaries holding cure of souls; special episcopal licence was required for absence which, save in exceptional cases, could not exceed two months and no privilege could be pleaded.[1235] Accordingly when, in 1567, Pius V was called upon to renew the quinquennial indult, he expressly excepted parochial churches and benefices with cure of souls. This was somewhat tardily obeyed and it was not until June 8, 1571, that the Suprema announced the limitation.[1236]

There was another provision of the Council of Trent which met with less observance. It required all obtaining preferment of any kind to make, within two months, profession of faith in the hands of the Ordinary or chapter. No attention was paid to this and the chapters, waking up to the advantage that it gave them, refused to pay the fruits, giving rise to multitudinous suits. At length, in 1612, a brief was procured from Paul V, declaring that the work of the inquisitors was most necessary to the Church and could not be interrupted to travel to the distant seats of their benefices. He therefore evoked all pending cases, imposing perpetual silence on the chapters and validating all payments made to incumbents, who were allowed in Spain six months, and in the colonies two years, to perform the duty; in future it should suffice to do it in the place of their residence and furnish a public instrument attesting the fact within six months or two years.[1237] The Council of Trent was of small importance when brought into collision with the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: DOCTORAL AND MAGISTRAL CANONRIES]

At length Philip III listened to the complaints of the chapters and, in a decree of December 24, 1599, addressed to the Suprema, he called attention to the injury inflicted on the cathedral services by withdrawing canons from their duties, and he ordered that in future much caution be exercised, especially as regarded the deans, the doctoral and magistral canons and the penitentiaries.[1238] If this produced an effect it was but temporary. In 1655 we chance to learn that, in the tribunal of Córdova, of the three inquisitors, Bernardino de Leon de la Rocha was a prebendary of Córdova and collegial of the cathedral of Cuenca; Bartolomé Bujan de Somoza was a canon of Cuenca and Fernando de Villegas was collegial of San Bartolomé. In addition, the fiscal, Juan María de Rodesno was collegial of Cuenca and the secretary, Pedro de Armenta was prebendary of Córdova.[1239] This single tribunal thus deprived Cuenca of three of its dignitaries and Córdova of two.

The doctoral and magistral canonries alluded to by Philip afforded a special grievance. These were stalls in each chapter to be occupied respectively by a doctor of laws and a master of theology, for the purpose apparently of furnishing to the church what it might need as to law and faith. They had been instituted by Sixtus IV, who decreed that the holders should not absent themselves for more than two months without express licence of the chapter under pain of forfeiture. The Inquisition was restive under this limitation on its acquisitiveness and, at its special request, Julius II, in his second brief of September 8, 1508, revoked the decree of Sixtus and included them among the benefices that could be held by officials without residence.[1240] At length, in 1599, the chapter of Córdova, in a contest over the matter, procured a papal brief requiring the residence of the doctoral canon, who was not to be excused under pretext of serving the Inquisition.[1241] Apparently this was disregarded, for Philip III, in his instructions of 1608 to Sandoval y Rojas, called special attention to the matter.[1242] Even this failed until there was a sharp conflict with the chapter of Toledo, over the case of Doctor Bernardo de Rojas, in which the chapter won and he was forced to resign an appointment as inquisitor. Then again the question came up, in 1640, when Philip IV appointed Doctor Andrés de Rueda Rico as supernumerary member of the Suprema; it resented the intrusion and addressed to the king a very free-spoken consulta, in which it laid particular emphasis on his being doctoral canon of Córdova and therefore obligated to residence. Yet, in spite of this, when the Córdova chapter refused to pay him his fruits, the Suprema decided against it. Then the chapter carried the case to Rome where, as the agent of the Inquisition reported, September 12, 1640, Urban VIII, to evade a direct decision, revived the brief of Sixtus IV forbidding the use of the doctoral and magistral canonries in this manner. Córdova followed up its victory and, in 1641, obtained another brief forbidding Rueda from receiving the fruits and appointing the nuncio and the Ordinary of Córdova executors to enforce it and to relieve the chapter from any censures fulminated in consequence. The Suprema was flushed with its recent victory, over the chapter of Valencia, in the matter of Sotomayor's prebend and pension and, in 1642, it addressed to the king an urgent appeal to suppress all such briefs, as Ferdinand had done, and representing the eagerness of the curia to destroy the independence of the Inquisition and the prerogatives of the crown. Philip, however, was now embarrassed with the Catalan and Portuguese revolts and for once was moderate, merely ordering the chapter to desist from the appeal and to surrender the briefs, while the inquisitor-general must require Rueda to abandon the canonry, seeing that he had enough to live on, with his salary in the Suprema and the wealthy archidiaconate of Castro which he also held. Incidentally the Suprema declared that the magistral canonries were out of reach, but the doctoral ones were not, probably presuming on the royal ignorance.[1243]

Trouble continued to the end. In 1684, the chapter of Santiago contested vigorously the right of the receiver-general of the Suprema to hold a canonry and, in spite of the prohibition to appeal to Rome, it carried the matter there, arguing that the officials of the Suprema were not included in the papal briefs. In this it had the support of the churches in general, which united in a memorial to the Holy See, but the effort was fruitless.[1244] Close watch seems to have been kept on the expiration of the quinquennial periods for, in 1728, the chapter of Valencia refused the daily distributions to non-resident members on the ground that the indult had run out; the tribunal appealed to the Suprema which replied, April 22nd, with a copy of the renewal of the grant by Benedict XIII, carrying it to 1733.[1245] Apparently there had nearly been a lapse.

[Sidenote: SPOLIATION OF THE CHURCH]

Commissioners were frequently selected from the chapters of their places of residence, and it was a long-debated question whether they were entitled to constant non-residence, seeing that their duties were occasional and mostly local. It was finally settled that they should enjoy the fruits when absent on duty for the Inquisition, but even this was disputed, in 1780, by the collegiate church of San Ildefonso of Llerena, in the case of the prebendary, Pedro Enríquez Verones, a commissioner of the Valladolid tribunal, who was refused his share of the distributions during absence by order of the inquisitors. Inquisitor-general Bertran complained to Carlos III, who peremptorily ordered payment whenever absent on business of the faith. A similar question apparently arose in 1818, for the Suprema sent, July 18th, to the tribunal of Llerena, a statement of the case with a copy of the letter of Carlos.[1246]

The Napoleonic wars caused a slight lapse in the quinquennial indults. One expired, February 6, 1813, a few days before the publication of the edict of suppression by the Córtes of Cádiz. When the Inquisition was re-established, it promptly applied for a renewal of the privilege and, on November 19, 1814, the Suprema announced that Pius VII had not only granted it but had ratified the receipt of revenues by non-residents during the interval. This renewal expired, February 6, 1818, when there was delay and the new brief was not issued until March 15th, but it does not appear that any chapter took advantage of the interval.[1247] When this expired, there was no longer an acting Inquisition.

* * * * *

The overgrown church establishment of Spain, with its accumulation of wealth, afforded a fair mark for acquisitiveness, and several efforts were made to obtain from it a permanent foundation for the Inquisition. We have seen how waste and prodigality, to say nothing of peculation, notwithstanding the active business of confiscation, rendered it difficult, in 1497 and 1498, to pay the salaries of officials. A remedy for this was sought in the spoliation of the Church, and Ferdinand and Isabella turned to Alexander VI, representing the constant increase of heresy, the additional efforts required for its extirpation and the insufficiency of confiscation to meet expenses. If the holy work were not to end, aid was needed and those engaged in it were performing a service to God equivalent to that of canons in the recitation of the daily offices. If a canonry with its prebend, in each metropolitan, cathedral and collegiate church, were devoted to the support of the officials, so long as the Inquisition should last, it would be a great safeguard to the faith and aid in the destruction of heresy. Alexander granted the request and, by a brief of November 25, 1501, he incorporated in the Inquisition a canonry and prebend in every church, authorizing the inquisitor-general to take possession of the first vacancies and appointing the Bishops of Burgos, Córdova and Tortosa as executors with power to suppress all resistance without appeal.[1248]

[Sidenote: GRANT OF CANONRIES]

It is remarkable that we hear nothing more of this portentous grant. No evidence has reached us of any attempt to enforce it or of any resistance. Probably even Ferdinand recognized an opposition too dangerous to be provoked and contented himself with using it as a threat against unruly chapters, which objected to his using canonries to pay his inquisitors. In the project of reform drawn up in 1518, it was proposed that, in place of living on the confiscations and penances, the inquisitors should have one or two canonries for their support. After this scheme fell through, Charles adhered to the idea and, on October 29th, he instructed his ambassador at Rome to procure from Leo X a brief similar to that of Alexander VI; without some such support, he said, it would be impossible to procure the services of men of proper character and learning.[1249] Leo was not as complaisant as Alexander, although Charles repeated the request in a personal letter to him, September 3, 1520.[1250] Then, on August 14, 1521, Cardinal Adrian wrote to Charles, reminding him that, long before, the pope had conceded a prebend in every church where there was a tribunal, in order to remove the infamy, ascribed by some persons to inquisitors, of desiring the condemnation of the accused in order to assure their support. That concession had not been enforced, principally because the revocation was awaited of the bull against the Inquisition. Now the Bishop of Alguer, the Roman agent of the Inquisition, has announced the revocation of the bull and, in order to remove the infamy and perpetuate the Inquisition, he urges Charles to write to Don Juan Manuel in Rome to procure the grant of the prebends in accordance with a list prepared by the Bishop of Alguer.[1251] Charles was probably too much engrossed in the attempt to suppress Luther to devote much attention to the matter and Adrian, when he succeeded to the papacy, did not use his power to make the grant, although he was involved in a quarrel with the stubborn chapter of Almería, which refused to admit his transfer, to Inquisitor Churruca of Valencia, of a precentorship which he held in that church--a quarrel which lasted until 1524 and required the united efforts of the Suprema, the tribunal of Murcia and of the emperor to bring to a termination.[1252]

We hear nothing more of the effort at this time, but Charles bore it so strongly in mind that, in his will, executed in Brussels, June 6, 1554, he dwelt upon the advantages of the measure and ordered Philip, in case of his own death without obtaining it, to labor with the Holy Father to procure what would be of such advantage to the Inquisition and service to God.[1253] The occasion came in a few years with the panic caused by the discovery of Protestantism among a few people of quality--a panic skilfully stimulated and exploited. Philip urged his ambassador Vargas to obtain from Paul IV a grant of one per cent. of ecclesiastical revenues, to relieve immediate necessities, and the suppression of a canonry and prebend in each cathedral and collegiate church. The Suprema aided, in a report to the pope, September 9, 1558, on the alarming progress of Lutheranism. After exaggerating the danger and the labors of the Inquisition, which could only have been carried on through the gift of ten thousand ducats by the king and contributions from Valdés, for it was penniless, the report went on to state that, when the Inquisition was established, there was a tribunal in almost every bishopric but, as the confiscations fell off, they were diminished to the few that remained, so that there was one which had fifteen sees in its district and it had not funds enough to pay the slender salaries of its officials. Although this had been repeatedly represented to the popes, no remedy had been granted, but now, in these perilous times of heresy, it seemed necessary that the tribunals should be multiplied, as at the beginning, and rendered permanent. All this could very readily be accomplished if the pope would apply some ecclesiastical revenues, which were of little service to God and could be better employed in sustaining the Holy Office, now so enfeebled through lack of funds. Although its work was pushed with all possible diligence, its future was uncertain if it could not be sustained and the remedy for this lay with his Holiness.[1254]

This lying plea aided the pressure brought to bear by the king and, on December 10th, Vargas was able to report that he and Cardinal Pacheco had had an audience of the pope, who manifested great goodwill and offered to grant a concession of a hundred thousand ducats to be levied on the clergy, in place of one per cent. on their revenues. After considering the question of the prebends, including the doctoral and magistral ones, he was content to apply to the Inquisition the first vacancy in each cathedral and collegiate church in Spain. This, Vargas adds, should receive special consideration, as it might be refused by another pope and, when this was gained, if the expenses of the Inquisition increased, there would be little trouble in getting it duplicated.[1255] The spread of heresy in France and the dread of its infecting Spain had brought the curia to a complying mood.

The Suprema needed no urging to secure so great a prize without loss of time. There could have been little opportunity for discussing details between Rome and Madrid, for the brief was signed January 7, 1559. It recited the reasons set forth in the report of September 9th and argued that, as the churches could not subsist without faith, it was better for them to sacrifice a portion of their substance than to risk the whole. Wherefore, motu proprio, with certain knowledge and in the plenitude of apostolic power, the pope suppressed one canonry and prebend in all cathedral and collegiate churches in Spain and the Canaries, the first falling vacant, no matter who might have the collation of it, and applied its revenues in perpetuity to the Inquisition. As each fell vacant, the inquisitor-general should appropriate it and collect the fruits, the consent of the diocesan or of any one else being in no way requisite, notwithstanding all conciliar decrees and papal constitutions to the contrary, or the claims of holders of expectatives or reversions, or of a long list of possible claimants, which shows how these benefices had been made matters of trade in every possible way.[1256]

[Sidenote: GRANT OF CANONRIES]

It can only have been the haste in which this long and elaborate document was prepared that explains the omission of executors empowered to break down the opposition to be expected from the whole Spanish hierarchy. Valdés, however, boldly assumed that he had the power. On April 29th, he sent the papal letter to all prelates and chapters, with a missive exhorting bishops, under pain of interdict of entrance to their churches, and requiring all deans, chapters, etc., under penalty of excommunication and two thousand gold ducats, to hold as suppressed, extinct and perpetually united to the Inquisition the first vacant canonry and prebend. In the name of the Inquisition he accepted them and declared them incorporated in it, and ordered the revocation of all nominations and collations that might have been made since the date of the letters or might be made thereafter. The chapters were commanded to pay over all emoluments as completely as though the canonry were served by an incumbent at all services, and inquisitors were empowered to prosecute all who resisted and to inflict censures and penalties, as well as to appoint procurators to take possession and collect the revenues--and all this he audaciously said that he did "by virtue of the said apostolic faculty conceded to us."[1257]

Pius IV died, December 9, 1565, and Valdés was shelved in 1566. The brief had conferred the power on his successors as well as on himself and there was no necessity for its confirmation, but one was procured from Pius V, July 15, 1566. The object evidently was to cure the defect as to executors, who were now appointed with full and arbitrary powers, those named being the Bishops of Sigüenza and Palencia and the auditor-general of the papal camera. Some details were added, an unusual feature being a prohibition to assail the letters as surreptitious and obreptitious, showing that this argument had been freely used in the endeavor to escape from their operation. A further confirmation was obtained from Gregory XIII, July 8, 1574, but none seems to have been subsequently thought requisite.[1258]

No time had been lost in gathering the fruits of the papal grant. April 16, 1559, a provision was despatched to take possession of a prebend, which had fallen vacant in the church of Palencia; April 27th another for one in Leon and soon afterwards for others in Calahorra and Saragossa. Frequently they were found to be burdened with pensions that had to be recognized, but the process went on and, in comparatively a few years, it would seem that vacancies had occurred in most of the chapters.[1259] Possession, however, was not had without sturdy resistance, during which, at one time or another, nearly all the chapters were under excommunication. Legal proceedings were frequently resorted to in the desperate hope of averting the absorption, but it was futile. The Suprema was the court of appeal, the cases practically were prejudged before they were commenced and there was no escape.

[Sidenote: GRANT OF CANONRIES]

In the end, of course, it made little difference, but a more shameless mockery of justice can scarce be conceived than that which made the tribunal, which was to profit by the suppression, the judge in its own case. The process may be followed in the voluminous proceedings attending the seizure of a prebend in the collegiate church of Belmonte--a town of some importance in the diocese of Cuenca. In 1559 it fell vacant by the death of Gregorio Osorio and was filled by the appointment of Francisco García del Espinar, at the instance of the Duke of Escalona, who seems to have had the collation. Valdés ordered its seizure and the matter took the form of a suit between the fiscal of the tribunal of Cuenca on the one side and, on the other, the duke, Espinar and the prior and chapter of Belmonte, with the Cuenca tribunal as judge, by virtue of a commission from Valdés. The judicial farce ended, October 8, 1560, by the inquisitors gravely reciting that they had heard the case and duly considered it with the assistance of persons of conscience and learning, and had found judgement in favor of the fiscal, suppressing the prebend and ordering all the income to be turned over to the receiver of the tribunal, including what had accrued since the death of Osorio. It is a striking illustration of the perversion of the sense of justice, induced by the inquisitorial process, that they were unconscious of the grotesqueness of such a performance, which was rounded out with a long and detailed enumeration of the penalties of disobedience--first a fine of two thousand ducats and then all the steps of excommunication, anathema and cursing with bell, book and candle and interdict on the town of Belmonte. This formidable sentence was served, October 15th, on each member of the chapter, and a notarial act was taken of the service. Resistance was felt to be useless. On the 16th the chapter met and adopted a formal act of obedience, stating that it was through fear of the penalties threatened; the suppression of the prebend was ordered to be entered on the capitular records, with the addition that, as the sentence gave no instructions as to the services or masses dependent upon it, or as to the payment of the accrued revenues received by Espinar, the necessary action would be taken subsequently.[1260]

While thus summarily enforcing the papal grant, the Inquisition prudently respected papal infractions of it. Advantage was taken of the papal claim to all benefices falling vacant while their possessors were in Rome--doubtless a costly proceeding, but better than forfeiture. Thus Gaspar Escudero promptly went to Rome and resigned his canonry of Calahorra in the hands of the pope, and his brother Rafael obtained bulls for it--probably subject to a pension. Similarly Diego de Ortega went through the same form and Francisco de Vellasañe secured the bulls. The inquisitors claimed them as vacancies, but there was risk in contesting the papal prerogative; Valdés decided, July 6 and 8, 1559, in both cases, that the vacancies had occurred in Rome and that the bulls were good. We meet, in 1560, with several similar cases, in Córdova, Alcalá de Henares and Tudela, where, after proceedings more or less vigorous, the papal action was respected.[1261] Another device to save something from the wreck was to obtain papal grants of pensions. Thus January 29, 1560, Andrés Martin presented bulls entitling him to a pension of thirty ducats on a canonry of Calahorra vacated by the death of his brother and it was ordered to be paid. It was the same with a pension of fifty ducats, on a suppressed canonry of Cuenca, for which bulls were obtained by Juan Rodríguez and Pedro Vara.[1262]

Respect at first was also shown to canonries under royal patronage. In Logroño the inquisitors seized one in the church of S. María la Redonda, but it proved to be a patrimonial one and was released.[1263] In time, however, this respect for the crown was surmounted, as we have seen in the century-long contention over the canonries of Antequera, Malaga and the Canaries.[1264]

It was necessary to systematize the new business thus thrown upon the tribunals and, in August 1560, agents were appointed in the inquisitorial districts to keep watch over vacancies occurring and to take the necessary action. They also made the collections and rendered accounts; but, as the income was largely payable in kind, the disposal of which was a matter of judgement, they were to make no sales without consulting the Suprema nor payments without its orders.[1265] This arrangement was soon found unsatisfactory. The variable character of the revenues, chiefly based on tithes and dependent on harvests and markets, afforded abundant opportunity for malversation; it seemed best to come to some understanding with the chapters and, after much investigation into details, the policy was adopted of farming out the prebends to them. In 1565 and 1566 we find numerous arrangements made of this kind. This too proved short-lived and, in 1567, it was determined to farm them out to the best bidders. Finally, in 1570, regulations were adopted for putting them up at auction, thus insuring full competition and preventing collusion and, in 1586, the returns were required to be placed in the coffers with three keys--a system which seems to have continued to the end.[1266]

[Sidenote: INCOME FROM CANONRIES]

There were many intricate questions affording prolific causes of quarrel to keep alive the hostility between the chapters and the Inquisition, engendered by the seizure; there were frequent appeals to Rome, which appear rarely to have benefited the appellant, and the Inquisition eventually was left in assured possession of its acquisitions. Yet the friction was constant, as was inevitable when the relations were so close between parties who disliked and distrusted each other. Thus, in 1665, we find the Suprema rebuking the Barcelona tribunal for requiring a chapter to exhibit its books to show what were the allotments made to the resident canons; the information, it said, could be obtained in a less offensive way. Again, about the same time, when the tribunal ordered the farmer of the revenues of the prebend of Guisana to investigate whether the chapter was defrauding it, the Suprema wrote that, as no increase of revenue could be thus obtained, it would be more prudent to keep quiet, especially if the farmer was a beneficed member of the church; it would be better to order the commissioner at Agramont to examine the books of the chapter, because the fifty libras paid by the farmer, when compared with the two hundred distributed to the canons, was too small. To this the tribunal replied that it had long been exposed to frauds and suppression of the value of fruits by some of the chapters; as for that of Guisana, it would be useless to examine the books, as the contador would be the first of the conspirators.[1267]

Petty quarrels such as these are significant of much that was going on everywhere and of the chronic condition of enmity between the tribunals and the chapters. The former doubtless received considerably less than their dues and the latter, regarding themselves as despoiled, felt justified in withholding from the spoiler whatever they could, per fas et nefas. Yet, however much the revenues may have suffered in this way, the prebends constituted, as we shall see hereafter, three-eighths of the resources of the tribunals, reaching, in 1731, to nearly six hundred thousand reales a year and enabling them to prolong their existence during the later period, when the confiscations and fines and rehabilitations had ceased to furnish available means of support. But for the brilliant stroke by which Valdés secured them, in 1559, it may be doubted whether the Inquisition would not have proved so heavy a burden that Carlos III would have allowed it to perish of inanition.

V. FINANCES

Indications are not lacking that, when the Inquisition was established, it was not regarded as a permanent institution but as one to last only until it had purified the land of Jewish apostates. Had its prolonged existence been expected, doubtless provision would have been made, during the early period of large confiscations, to lay aside a fund sufficient for its support after the tide of spoliation should have ebbed. Ferdinand occasionally manifested a desire to establish a foundation for its maintenance, but his own necessities and the greedy pressure for grants rendered nugatory whatever intentions of the kind he may have entertained from time to time. In the proposition made to Charles V, in 1519, there is allusion to such a plan, proposed by Ferdinand, of securing censos which should place the institution on a firm financial basis and which had been partially carried out in some places.[1268] There is slender trace, however, of any results of such policy. When there were large confiscations in Sicily, he ordered, June 27, 1513, that none of the censos so obtained should be sold, but that they should be kept for the support of the tribunal. Apparently this was not done by the receiver, Diego de Obregon who, on quitting Sicily in 1514, left behind him the considerable sum of twelve hundred ounces, which Ferdinand ordered his successor, Garcí Cid, to invest in censos,[1269] but the subsequent condition of the tribunal shows that peculation and extravagance rendered impossible any accumulation. We have seen that, in 1517, Seville and Córdova had reserved funds in public securities, but they were absorbed by the Suprema.[1270] Possibly these were derived from the great composition described above; a cédula bearing the name of Queen Juana, February 24, 1516, states that it was devoted to the purchase of censos for the Inquisition, but we have had occasion to see how it was frittered away so that only a moderate portion can have reached its destination.[1271] The Toledo tribunal, in 1515, received from Ferdinand the absolute ownership of the building occupied by it and some other properties.[1272] Doubtless there were other donations of greater or less amount, but these are the only appropriations for the permanent support of the tribunals of Castile that I have met with.

As for those of Aragon, a letter of Cardinal Adrian, January 30, 1520, allowing Saragossa to draw upon the fines and penances for its expenses, until it could get some confiscations, shows that it had no other source of support.[1273] Barcelona was somewhat better off, for the local government, in consideration of the Concordia of 1520, granted it twelve thousand libras and, though the Inquisition subsequently saw fit to deny this, a letter of the Suprema in 1521, directing the diputados to invest in censos the sum, which they had already deposited, shows that on their side, at least, the bargain was honestly carried out.[1274] What between this and the results of the somewhat irregular industry of the inquisitors, the tribunal must have been fairly well supplied for, in 1550, we chance to hear of an ayuda de costa of twenty-four ducats granted to its notary Bartolomé García for his labor in copying the books of censos which it held in Perpignan and the accounts of the receiver.[1275] As for Valencia, at this period, I have met with no data.

[Sidenote: IMPROVIDENCE]

These indications are fragmentary but they suffice to justify the conclusion that the proceeds of the great confiscations in the early period were dissipated without laying up any permanent provision for the future. As the Suprema, throughout the first half of the sixteenth century, was constantly drawing upon the tribunals, it proves that, as a rule, they were making more than their expenses and that when one chanced to run short its deficiency was supplied from some more fortunate one. The grant, in 1559, of a hundred thousand ducats, levied upon the Spanish ecclesiastics, was probably, for the most part, invested by the Suprema for its own benefit, though ten thousand ducats were placed in the hands of its alguazil mayor Ibarra, to be drawn upon for special purposes.[1276] Then came the suppression of the prebends, which was expected to relieve all necessities, but it seems to have led to improvidence for, in 1573, the Suprema complained that moneys received from redemption of censos had not been reinvested but had been spent, and it called for reports as to amounts received and expended. Apparently the explanations were not satisfactory for, in 1579, peremptory orders were issued that, when a censo was paid off, the money must be reinvested in another, no matter how imperative might be other calls.[1277] Thus, in 1586, the tribunals were called upon for reports of their revenues, as it was understood that these had increased, together with statements as to the product of the prebends and censos.[1278] It is not likely that these were fully and frankly rendered. Under the rules, as we shall see, monthly statements were required, which should have made demands for special reports superfluous, but the tribunals were apt to observe towards the Suprema the same reticence which it showed to the king. We happen to have the report of Valencia, made in 1587, in response to this order, and find that it is quite imperfect. No mention is made of the confiscations and penances, and various items are omitted, while the 2500 ducats levied on the Moriscos shrink to 1500 libras, and the total amounts to about 5000 libras for the year.[1279] Yet Valencia must have been abundantly supplied for, when in 1601, the Suprema gave it permission to have a canopy, for occasions of extraordinary sentences, made at a cost not exceeding 500 ducats, when it was finished the bill amounted to over 900. The Suprema grumbled at this extravagance, but finally ordered it to be paid.[1280] The tribunal of Logroño must also have been in funds, for we chance to learn that, in 1587, it lent to the Countess of Osorno the sum of 155,535 reales 17 mrs. for which it received the annual interest of 4552 reales 5 mrs., or about three per cent.[1281]

At this period the Inquisition ought to have been financially comfortable, with its prebends and ordinary sources of income, besides having nearly all its higher officials quartered on the churches, but the fall in the purchasing power of money had necessitated a rise in salaries and it was not backward in making complaint. In 1595, a memorial of the Suprema to Philip II refers to frequent previous appeals representing the diminution of its property and income, together with the multiplication of officials, and declares that, if some remedy is not found, the king will be obliged to make up the deficiency.[1282] Soon after this the tribunals of the kingdoms of Aragon suffered considerably from the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609-10, to which they had so largely contributed. The blow fell with special severity on Valencia, where the Moorish population was largest, and the tribunal lost its 2500 ducats a year and unlimited power of inflicting ten-ducat fines. In 1615 we find the Suprema ordering the salaries prorated in conformity with the collections--though, at the same time, the alcaide Gil Noguerol was jubilated with a salary of 40,000 maravedís and Nicolas Claver, the steward of the prison, was told to look for something from which a grant could be made to him.[1283]

[Sidenote: COMPLAINTS OF POVERTY]

Ample use was made of the distress in Aragon to stimulate royal liberality. January 30, 1617 the Suprema represented it to Philip III, but his extravagance had kept him penniless and the appeal was unanswered. It returned to the charge, October 22, 1618, perhaps thinking that the fall of the Duke of Lerma might lead to a more favorable hearing. The condition of the tribunal of Majorca was represented as deplorable; it could no longer be helped, as formerly, by Valencia, for that tribunal had a yearly deficit of 400 ducats. Barcelona was in like evil plight, and the tribunals of Castile could no longer afford it the aid they used to give. As for Saragossa, its distress had already been represented to the king, who was prayed to order the Vice-chancellor of Aragon to make provision for its relief.[1284] Then, in another consulta of 1619, the Suprema asserted that, taking the Inquisition as a whole, its expenses exceeded its income and that the deficiency must be supplied by the king; as a convincing argument it added that, when vacancies occurred, it proposed to suppress three inquisitorships, sixteen secretaryships and its own three supernumerary members--an intention that failed of realization.[1285] We may reasonably hesitate to accept these clamorous complaints of poverty, when the Suprema so carefully kept the sovereign in the dark as to its real resources, nor is it easy to reconcile with them the assertion of Fray Bleda, in 1618, that the Spanish Inquisition was so richly endowed that it had a hundred places in receipt of incomes larger than those of many Italian bishoprics.[1286]

No doubt, during the ensuing period of war, misgovernment and elaborate financial blundering, the Inquisition, in some degree, shared the distress which was universal throughout Spain, but it had resources more available and more jealously husbanded than the other departments of the State; it was exposed to less pressure and it managed to meet the incessant demands of Philip IV with no very severe sacrifice of its invested capital. Of course the customary complaints continued. In a consulta of March 28, 1681 the Suprema bewailed the poverty of the organization, the lack of means among the tribunals to pay the salaries and maintenance of prisoners, which it had repeatedly represented, with statements of the contador-general showing the income of each tribunal with its deficit.[1287] This may have been true as regards some of them, owing to special causes. Thus a consulta of November 6, 1677, asserts that the Concordia of 1646 had reduced Saragossa to such penury that the last statement of its very moderate salaries showed an amount of 111,246 silver sueldos due to the officials, forcing the Suprema this year to assist it with 1750 pieces of eight, a grant that it cannot repeat owing to its own very narrow means.[1288] In other cases, distress may be attributed to incurable laxity of management, as in Toledo, where a statement of 1647 shows a payment by the receiver of 105,984 mrs. to the Inquisitor Santos de San Pedro, accompanied with the remark that lack of means prevents his paying the balance still due. But it also shows that the receiver held 801,724 mrs. of obligations so worthless that the auditor did not consider advisable any attempt to collect them, and that there were arrearages due on censos and other sources of revenue amounting to 1,353,452 mrs.[1289]

[Sidenote: POWER OF RECUPERATION]

This justifies what is asserted in the plain-spoken memorial of 1623 to the Suprema--that through negligence there have been such losses that, if they had been avoided, the tribunals would be abundantly provided. This is attributed to the beggarly salaries of the financial officials; not having enough to support them, they engage in other occupations and, being sure of their salaries, they pay no attention to their duties. Another effect is that it is necessary to appoint natives who, through kinship or fear of offending their neighbors, do not execute orders, or who grant such delays that the chances of collecting are lost. Moreover, as they get no fees for looking up evidence and documents, suits miscarry.[1290] Incompetent, slovenly and often corrupt administration such as this affords ample explanation of whatever distress may have existed. Nor was malversation confined to the local tribunals. In November, 1642, Madrid was startled when, by order of the inquisitor-general, the presiding member of the Suprema, Pedro Pachecho, was suddenly arrested for malversation in office and was hurried off to Leon, without allowing him to communicate with the king or with Olivares, and every one said that it was a judgement of God on him for his extortions[1291]--the same Pacheco to whom Philip had just granted some 30,000 ducats accruing from the sale of offices (p. 215). There is significance in the cautious remark of Pellicer, August 15, 1643, comparing the death of Don Lope de Morales, of the Council of Castile, who died very poor, and of Inquisitor Alcedo, of the Suprema, who died very rich, leaving 40,000 ducats in gold and silver.[1292]

The financial elasticity of the tribunals was remarkable, especially when stimulated by the pressure of poverty, for they held the means of recuperation in their own hands. Valencia undoubtedly suffered for awhile from the Morisco expulsion, yet in 1630 we chance to learn that it had 45,500 ducats invested in municipal bonds at five per cent., yielding an income of 2275 ducats. In 1633 the Suprema is scolding it for its extravagance in illuminations and bull-fights and, in the same year, it is seeking investments for its spare funds. This prosperity continued for, in 1660, a statement of its income shows 4600 libras from interest on bonds and 530 from the rents of some houses, in addition to the four canonries and the fines and confiscations.[1293] After the suppression of the Catalan rebellion, in 1652, the restored Barcelona tribunal had to reconstruct itself from the foundations, but it speedily became opulent for, in 1662-4, it spent more than 4200 libras in damask hangings, repairs and extraordinary ayudas de costa and, in 1666, it was investing 1000 libras in a censo.[1294]

As in duty bound, a portion of the savings of the Inquisition was invested in government securities. Between 1661 and 1667 there were placed in this manner, from the proceeds of confiscations, sums amounting to 691,272 mrs. and, in 1668, this was increased by 202,771, the whole aggregate at this date being 7,877,999. With customary favoritism, its holdings were exempted from the deductions, amounting to partial repudiation, in which the necessities of Spanish finance sought relief.[1295]

Taking it as a whole I think we may assume that, during the vicissitudes of the seventeenth century, the Inquisition had abundant means for its support and that, despite its incessant complaints of poverty, it suffered less from the exigencies of the times than any other department of the government. Internal mismanagement or external causes may have brought temporary distress on individual tribunals, but persecution was still a lucrative business and such troubles were speedily overcome. As for the Suprema, we have seen that it was always in funds, not only for its necessities but for its luxuries and for the liberalities showered upon its members and subordinates, while the examination of a large series of receipts for salaries and perquisites shows that payments were made with a punctuality rare in the Spanish administration of the period. Certain it is that the Count of Frigiliana, in his addition to the Consulta Magna of 1696, assumes that the Inquisition was richly endowed with the prebends, the real estate acquired through confiscation and the censos and other investments which it had accumulated.[1296]

* * * * *

The opening of the eighteenth century was ominous of troubles to come. The War of Succession threw everything into disorder. Not only were the inquisitorial finances affected, but the exigencies of the Bourbon government caused it to levy exactions which Philip IV in his deepest distress had not ventured upon. About 1704 a tax of five per cent. was laid on the salaries of all officials, and this soon afterwards was increased to ten. Then, in 1707, the Inquisition had to bear its part in a general donation, the collection of which was entrusted to the bishops, as though the Suprema was distrusted and, in 1709, this was followed by an "honesto subsidio."[1297] To obtain some return for this, the Suprema ordered lists to be made up of all benefices not requiring residence throughout Spain, under royal patronage, and asked the king to incorporate them in the Inquisition, but this somewhat audacious request was refused.[1298]

[Sidenote: CONDITION IN 1731]

Complaints of poverty continued and, if we may trust a tabular statement of the receipts and expenditures of each tribunal, drawn up in 1731, they were fully justified, for the finances must have undergone a most notable deterioration under Philip V. Indeed, it is a mystery how the institution continued to exist under such conditions, with a yearly deficit of over half a million reales and nearly a million and a half of overdue wages to its employees.[1299] The expenses of the Suprema are represented as about double its receipts. Only two tribunals, those of Santiago and Seville, show a small excess of income, while Valencia prudently squares its accounts to a maravedí. The rest all show a greater or less deficit. The Suprema no longer draws at will on the tribunals, but some of them have to make to it definite subventions; thus Santiago is obliged to contribute 18,000 reales, Córdova 10,000, Seville 20,000, Murcia 45,000 and Majorca 10,000, the rest nothing, but on what principle these payments were based does not appear. Each tribunal, although subordinate to the Suprema in financial matters, has its own budget, its own independent resources, and is left to manage its deficit as best it can. The result, as might be expected, is various. Córdova, Murcia and Majorca would be solvent but for the subventions to the Suprema. The little Majorca tribunal, formerly so necessitous, has now the largest salary list of all, amounting to 104,694 reales, but it likewise enjoys the largest revenue from investments, 96,829 drawn naturally from its lucky confiscations in 1678 and 1691, from which it doubtless secured an endowment. Toledo, with but a moderate deficit of 27,000, owes over 250,000 reales to its officials. Saragossa continues unfortunate; it was ejected from the Aljafería, probably as an incident of the War of Succession, but Philip V, in 1708, granted it 5200 ducats a year out of the confiscations to rent buildings. This was withdrawn in 1725 and, in 1727, the Suprema appealed to the king with a deplorable account of its condition, dependent on its prebends and with an income less than half of its pay-roll.[1300] Its position had not improved in 1731. It had undertaken to put up new buildings, on which 20,000 ducats had been spent and more than 20,000 additional were required for their completion. It was very expensively managed, with a salary list of nearly 93,000 reales and total expenses of 118,000, on an income of about 80,000, while Barcelona paid in salaries only 50,000 and its whole expenditure was less than 60,000 on an income of 48,000. Santiago was fortunate in its prebends, which brought in nearly 88,000 a year; outside of this it had only 5000 from investments, but it was able to pay its subvention and had a surplus of nearly 4000. In only four tribunals--Santiago, Seville, Murcia and Valencia--were the salaries fully paid up.

The whole statement illustrates the curious lack of system under which the Inquisition had continued since its foundation. Under Ferdinand, he handled its finances as his own, using them according to his necessities, with improvident disregard of the future, and without formulating an arrangement by which its affairs could be placed on a stable basis, although its gains were aleatory and subject inevitably to diminution as it accomplished the object of its creation. Then, under Charles V, the Suprema assumed control, supplying its own wants from any surplus presumably existing in any tribunal, and transferring sums from one to another as exigencies presented themselves in the fluctuating stream of confiscations. The absorption of the prebends afforded for the first time a more stable revenue, although these too were variable. Each tribunal acquired those which fell within its district, thus obtaining an unequal basis of support, and becoming in a certain sense financially independent, although subject to the scrutiny and control of the Suprema. Thus one might be wealthy and another poverty-stricken. There was no solidarity, no common treasury into which the receipts of each were poured and from which their necessities were supplied. The Suprema had a general auditor's office, to which the accounts of all the receivers or treasurers were rendered, enabling it to exercise supervision and a more or less fitful and efficient direction, but it was more intent on providing for its own wants than on enforcing responsibility upon the local financial officials. It wasted its energies on the pettiest details, while distance and difficult communication forced it practically to leave important questions to the discretion of the tribunals. The anomalous financial organization, which thus developed, combined the vices of centralization and local self-government, with divided responsibility and inefficient supervision. A tribunal which chanced to have large confiscations or numerous and lucrative prebends, with honest and capable administration, prospered, while others not so fortunate were reduced to penury.

[Sidenote: PROJECTS FOR RELIEF]

Towards the middle of the century the condition seems to have slightly improved. A writer, evidently well-informed, who complains bitterly that the usefulness of the Inquisition was crippled by inadequate means, states its revenues at 948,000 reales derived from invested property and 637,000 from a hundred prebends and some pensions, while its salaries and expenses amount to 1,900,000, leaving a deficit of 400,000. He proposes that the property derived from confiscations, representing a capital of 36,000,000, should be abandoned to the king and that the Church be levied upon to raise the total income to 2,700,000 which he assumes to be absolutely essential. It is scarce necessary to enter into the details of this proposed levy, except to mention that he says that there were a hundred and thirteen collegiate churches, in which no prebend had been suppressed and these, averaging them at 2500 reales, would yield 282,500 a year; also that there were forty-nine inquisitors enjoying prebends and benefices, averaging 11,000 a year which should be incorporated, yielding 539,000.[1301]

Another writer of the same period seeks relief by suppressing unnecessary officials and absorbing some more prebends, after which the king should assume the whole responsibility, appointing the salaried officials, collecting the revenues and paying the expenses, when, if he had to make good a deficiency, he could not devote public money to a cause more useful and just. This writer also makes a most earnest appeal for increased salaries for the inferior officials, who, he says, were objects of popular derision in consequence of the meanness of their appearance. When one died, the expenses of his sickness and burial had to be defrayed by the tribunal in the shape of an ayuda de costs and, while living, they were overwhelmed with debts which they had no means of paying, as shown by the number of claims filed by creditors. In the provinces they often had to supplement their wages by beggary, and their integrity suffered, for the starving are easy subjects for temptations.[1302]

I have not met with statistics as to the subsequent condition of each tribunal, but there are indications that some, at least, were comfortably endowed. Thus Valencia which, in 1731, showed a carefully balanced statement of receipts and expenditures, is found, in 1773 and 1774, purchasing real estate as an investment for surplus funds.[1303] In 1792, the Suprema, in response to a demand for increase of salaries, ordered from all the tribunals a statement of income and expenses for the seven years, 1784-90. The return of Valencia shows, for 1790, an income of 12,207 libras and an expenditure of 7777, or a surplus of 4430, though its pay-roll comprised twenty-five officials, receiving in all 5616. Its coffer contained at the time an accumulation of 32,707 libras, although, for the five previous years, it had spent an average of 5000 libras a year in permanent improvements and investments. Perhaps this can scarce be taken as an example of all the tribunals, but it would indicate that some, at least, were not oppressed with poverty, while the absurdly small item of 39 libras 4 sueldos expended on maintenance of prisoners, in 1790, indicates how little real work was performed by its overgrown staff.[1304]

This flourishing condition was not destined to continue. The necessities of the Government, in its foolish wars with France, England and Portugal, caused it to call upon the Inquisition to convert its investments into public funds. The Valencia tribunal reported to the Suprema, February 23, 1802, that, in obedience to its order of January 22nd, there had been realized from the sale of farms the sum of 62,584 libras, which had been duly paid over to the "Caja de consolidacion de vales," and of course all such patriotic contributions disappeared in the years of trouble which ensued. Equally unfortunate was an investment made in 1795, likewise by order of the Suprema, of 6640 libras in an obligation of the Real Compañia Maritima, on which, as it reported in 1805, it had never received any interest. In the same year it presented a dolorous account of the misery of its officials who, from their inadequate salaries, had been forced to make a voluntary donation of four per cent. to the Government and, under pressure from the captain-general, to contribute 175 reales to the support of the silk-weavers thrown out of employment, which, it suggested, should be paid for them by the tribunal as, for two years and a half, it had had no fiscal and thus had saved his salary.[1305] The tribunal of Logroño must have husbanded its resources, for it was able, July 23, 1808, to lend to the authorities 30,000 reales towards a fund demanded by the French General Verdier for abstaining from sacking the town. Under the Restoration a return of the loan was vainly claimed.[1306]

[Sidenote: THE RECEIVER]

Worse was to come in the revolutionary times which followed. Napoleon, on his arrival at Madrid, December 4, 1808, issued a decree abolishing the Inquisition and confiscating its property to the crown and this, of course, was enforced wherever the French armies penetrated. On the other hand, the Córtes of Cádiz had learned, from the example of the Inquisition, that useless benefices were a financial resource, and one of their earliest acts was a decree of December 1, 1810, forbidding the nomination of incumbents to all prebends, raciones and benefices, vacant or falling vacant, except magistral, doctoral, lectoral and penitentiary prebends, or benefices having cure of souls, under which the suppressed canonries were made to contribute to the War of Independence.[1307] The Holy Office was virtually extinct when it was suppressed by the Córtes in 1813, and we shall see hereafter how painful was the resuscitation of its finances under the Restoration.

* * * * *

The financial organization of the Inquisition at first was simple and even crude. The receiver of confiscations, or treasurer, was a royal official. Ferdinand always speaks of him as mi receptor and it was the king who issued commissions to all the officials on the financial side of the tribunals--the receiver, the auditor and the judge of confiscations--although, after the incorporation of the prebends, the inquisitor-general added powers to administer the revenues from ecclesiastical sources, as this was his exclusive province under the papal briefs.[1308] When Ferdinand died, January 23, 1516, it is not surprising that difficulties were thrown in the way of the receivers, on the ground that their commissions expired with him. To meet this, letters were issued to them, in the name of Queen Juana, February 28th and March 4th, instructing them that they were still in office, with full authority to make collections and to pay salaries and expenses.[1309] By the time of the resignation of Charles V, the system had become so firmly established that no questions seem to have arisen, although probably with each new monarch commissions were renewed.

The office was rightly considered to be one of much importance, especially in the early period of large confiscations. In 1486, the receiver figures, in the Saragossa pay-roll, for a salary of 3000 sueldos to 4000 for the inquisitors, while, in those of Medina del Campo and Jaen, he has 80,000 mrs. to 60,000 for the inquisitors. In 1515, the receiver and the inquisitor in Sicily both receive 300 ducats.[1310] The receiver necessarily required assistants and agents, as the properties under his charge were scattered throughout his district. At first these were paid by the fisc, but Ximenes, in his reform of 1516, required receivers to pay for them out of their salary of 60,000 mrs.--an economy of doubtful wisdom.[1311] In time the comparative importance of the receiver diminished and, in the middle of the eighteenth century, we find him--or treasurer as he was then called--rated at 400 ducats, while the inquisitors and fiscal have 800.[1312] At times there were distinct receivers for the confiscations and for the fines, penances and rehabilitations, but usually one sufficed, though the accounts were kept separate. The receiver was required, by the Instructions of 1498, to give satisfactory bonds to the amount of 300,000 mrs.[1313] A regulation of 1579 prescribed that these bonds were to be renewed every three years and that, when one of the bondsmen died, he was to be replaced at once, under pain of major excommunication, latæ sententiæ, but the frequency with which this rule was enunciated indicates how difficult was its enforcement.[1314]

[Sidenote: ITEMIZED ACCOUNTS REQUIRED]

While the power of the receiver in making collections was almost boundless, in disbursements he was prudently limited. An instruction of Deza, in 1504, requires the auditors not to pass in the accounts any item for which the receiver could not exhibit an order from the king, the inquisitor-general, the Suprema, or the judge of confiscations in matters adjudicated by him.[1315] In Aragon, the accounts were audited by the maestre racional or auditor-general of the kingdom and, in Castile, by the auditor of the Suprema, after which they were submitted to Ferdinand, who examined them minutely and decided as to the items disallowed by the auditors.[1316] All this, as we have seen, passed into the hands of the Suprema, which exercised the most careful watchfulness over all gastos extraordinarios, or expenditures other than the regular payment of salaries and the like. Thus, in 1645, Martin Pretel, the treasurer of Toledo, paid out, on orders of the inquisitors, 190-1/2 reales for repairs to a house occupied by one of them and 116 reales for repairs to the prison. The auditor refused to pass these trivial outlays, and it was not until 1654 that the Suprema allowed them, with a caution that in future the cartas acordadas must be observed.[1317]

The utmost precision and minuteness were exacted, with elaborate vouchers containing the order authorizing payment and the receipt of the payee. In the accounts for 1524, of Cristóval de Medina, receiver of Valencia, he recites an order issued by the inquisitors to Pere Sorell, who was repairing the palace of the Inquisition, granting him an old chain which hung under some of the windows and he includes Sorell's receipt for it.[1318] Similarly in the Valencia accounts for 1759 we find the inquisitors issuing orders and receipts taken in the case of the charwoman Josefa Serra, who was paid 3 libras for sweeping out the rooms from January 1st to St. John's day and 5 libras for carrying the seat of honor twice to the church of Santa Ana and once to San Salvador. So with Juan García, paid 1 libra 10s. for taking up and putting down the mats and 1 libra 4s. for two cords for the well.[1319]

There was perhaps some excuse for dilatoriness in rendering accounts so elaborately minute, accompanied with the requisite orders and vouchers, but a more efficient reason was that the receiver was apt to be in arrears, using the funds for his own profit, in defiance of stringent regulations, and his account rendered was sure to be followed with a demand to pay a balance due. Ferdinand, as we have seen, and after him the Suprema, labored vainly to secure promptitude and regularity. In 1560 it devised an elaborate plan of appointing an auditor for every two tribunals, with a salary of 40,000 mrs., for which he was to spend alternate years in examining their several accounts. Collusion between him and the receivers was guarded against by severe penalties for paying his salary except on orders from the Suprema and threats of prosecuting him for neglect of duty. When a balance was struck, the receiver was to deposit it within nine days in the coffer of the tribunal and furnish the Suprema with evidence of the fact within nine days more; if he failed in this, the inquisitors were to imprison him under pain of forfeiting their salaries from that time forth. As each account was completed, the auditor was to forward a copy to the Suprema, and he was further to supervise the accounts of the collectors of the suppressed prebends and to see that all receipts were duly deposited in the coffer.[1320] The scheme has interest from the insight which it gives into the disorder and dilapidation characteristic of inquisitorial finance, rather than from any improvement which it caused, for it seems to have proved impracticable. It is true that, in 1570, there were some additional instructions as to details, which look as if, after ten years, there was an effort to make it work, but it was soon afterwards abandoned and, in 1572, there was a return to the old system by ordering from each tribunal an annual statement.[1321] This was followed by requiring a monthly report as to the management of property and the returns collected, but this seems to have received as little obedience as previous instructions.[1322]

The memorial of 1623 to the Suprema urges strongly the enforcement of the instructions of 1560--that an auditor should, every year, audit the accounts of the treasurer, in the presence of an inquisitor, under penalty of forfeiture of a year's salary by both. The statements thus rendered should then be examined by the fiscal of the Suprema, with the aid of an expert accountant for, through the lack of this, in the previous accounts there have been great errors, and if they were reviewed by a shrewd examiner it would be discovered how large have been the losses.[1323] The writer evidently had little faith in the receivers-general and auditors-general on whom the Suprema depended, but his suggestions were not acted upon, and the Suprema contented itself with calling upon the dilatory treasurers for annual reports and occasionally getting their statements. The secret of the delay is indicated in instructions to the Valencia tribunal, in 1633, that, when Melchor de Mendoza, the treasurer, has finished the accounts which he has commenced, pressure must be brought to bear to make him pay the balance against him.[1324]

[Sidenote: NEGLIGENCE IN RENDERING ACCOUNTS]

The Depositarios de los Pretendientes, who had charge of the deposits of those seeking proofs of limpieza, emulated the treasurers. A letter of March 28, 1665, to the Barcelona tribunal calls attention to a carta acordada of January 16, 1620, ordering the accounts of the depositario to be included in the annual statements required for the auditor-general. The latter, however, reports that he has received none for many years, wherefore it is ordered that an itemized statement in detail, including everything since the last account rendered, shall be made out, showing what is due to all parties concerned. It may reasonably be doubted whether the command was obeyed. In 1713, orders were sent to Valencia that, if the depositario did not pay the balance in four months, pressure was to be brought to bear upon him, and the secretaries were to be forced to pay him what they owed him. The pressure was unavailing, for a prolonged correspondence ensued on the subject, throughout 1714. Towards the close of the century, however, we find the depositario of Valencia rendering statements with some degree of regularity every two years.[1325]

If the accounts of the tribunals were thus carelessly kept, those of the Suprema would appear to be equally disordered. At least such conclusion is justified when, in 1685, we find it asking the tribunal of Valencia for a statement of the remittances which it had made to the treasurer-general. In 1695 the request is repeated for the years 1693 and 1694 and again in 1714, 1715 and 1726--all of which would argue most slovenly bookkeeping.[1326]

Towards the close of its career, apparently, the Inquisition had succeeded in establishing a more methodical system. In 1803, Barcelona is rendering monthly statements of receipts and expenditures with commendable regularity and we may attribute to the political perturbations the fact that the accounts of Valencia for the years 1807, 1809 and 1810 were not audited by the Suprema until 1816.[1327]

Confidence in the integrity of the average receiver was evidently neither felt nor deserved, and, at an early period, the device was adopted of the arca de tres llaves--a coffer placed in the secreto with three locks of which the keys were held by the receiver, by an inquisitor and by the scrivener of sequestrations, so that it could be opened only in presence of all three. In this repository the receiver was required to place all moneys coming into his hands and so it remained until the last, as a fine example of archaic simplicity. To this there were occasional variations, such as requiring two arcas, one for confiscations and one for fines and penances, or, when the tribunals were living on their incomes, one for capital and the other for revenue. As a rule, however, one sufficed and it was customarily divided into two compartments, for confiscations and fines and penances respectively.

The rules prescribed, in 1514, by Inquisitor-general Mercader, indicate the precautions regarded as necessary to reduce to a minimum the temptations of the receiver. He was to receive no money save in presence of the scrivener of sequestrations or of the secreto. All collections were to be placed in the coffer within three days of their receipt, in the presence of an inquisitor and of a scrivener. When subordinates brought funds from other places, they were to be delivered to him within two days in presence of a scrivener and he was required to deposit them within twenty-four hours. Fraud and deceit, Mercader says, must cease in the collection and sales of confiscations and in depositing and taking out moneys from the coffer. All expenses, ordinary and extraordinary, were to be paid with money taken from the coffer. The scrivener must, with his own hands, keep duplicate books, with dated entries, of all deposits and withdrawals, one copy to be kept in his possession and the other in the coffer. No moneys must be taken out for loans or other purpose, save the expenses of the tribunals, without the express licence of the king and inquisitor-general. Every two months the receiver and scrivener, in presence of an inquisitor, must verify the accounts and the money on hand, and must send a written statement of the latter to the inquisitor-general. Any omission or deviation from this by receiver, inquisitor or scrivener was punishable with excommunication and a fine of five hundred ducats. All the officials concerned were to be furnished with copies of these instructions and one was to be placed in the coffer.[1328]

[Sidenote: THE COFFER WITH THREE KEYS]

It was one thing to frame precise regulations and another to secure their observance. These instructions were sent to Sicily in 1515, but evasions were speedily invented for already, in 1516, a letter of the Suprema asserts that experience had shown that the custodians of the three keys, by lending them to each other, committed frauds on the moneys in the coffer. To prevent this it devised wholly inefficient regulations as to the parties to whom the keys should be confided, in the absence of the regular custodians, so that, as it naïvely remarked, no frauds may be committed in the future.[1329]

It argues a singularly hopeful spirit in the Suprema if it expected that such precautions would preclude embezzlement, when the standard of official morality was so low that malversation was prevalent everywhere and was rarely if ever punished by dismissal from office. How tenderly such indiscretions were treated is manifested in a case occurring in Barcelona, in 1514. Francisco de San Climent owed 186 libras to the confiscated estate of Bernardo and Dionis Venet; his father paid 150 on account, but this was not credited, being evidently embezzled, and, on June 13th, Ferdinand ordered the receiver, Mateo de Morrano, not to press the suit against San Climent on account of the damage that it would inflict on the honor of the officials--the matter was to be hushed up in order to spare the reputation of the tribunal.[1330] When theft was thus condoned we need not wonder at the condition of the receptoria of Saragossa, characterized by fraud, disorder and neglect, as described by the auditor Anton Navarro in a letter which Ferdinand gave, in 1515, to the Archdeacon of Almazan when sending him thither as inspector.[1331]

Allusion has been made above to the remedy sought by Ximenes in 1517, by sending an auditor-general to inspect all the tribunals and ascertain the balances due. It was probably in consequence of this that Juan Martínez de Guilestegui, the former receiver of Toledo, was found indebted in the sum of 51,500 mrs., but there was no thought of punishing him and, with customary tenderness, Charles V forgave him half of the debt and promised that on payment of this he should be free of all further claim.[1332] Apparently it was a matter of course that receivers should be in debt to the fisc, although, if the rules as to the three-keyed coffer were observed, there was no opportunity for them to be in arrears. The rules in fact were disregarded with impunity. Inquisitor-general Manrique, writing to Sicily in 1525, says that they had not been observed for several years and orders them to be enforced under the prescribed penalties, but as he did not inflict those penalties for past disobedience, his threats were a mere brutum fulmen.[1333]

The consequence of this condonation of malpractice appears whenever there is opportunity of investigation. One of Ferdinand's most trusted receivers was Amador de Aliaga of Valencia. On his death, about 1529, when concealment was no longer possible, he was found to be a defaulter and, as one of the inquisitors was his heir, the Suprema ordered him to make good the deficit out of the estate. Then Pedro Sorell, a notary of the secreto, was in the enjoyment of certain confiscated houses, granted to him by Ferdinand, subject to a censo of 2975 sueldos; this had clandestinely been paid off out of the funds of the tribunal; Sorell refused restitution, and the Suprema merely told the inquisitors to persuade him to refund the amount without a suit. This same Sorell had covertly, through a third party, purchased a censo of 8000 sueldos, particularly well secured, sold by the fisc in order to pay salaries. The Suprema rebuked the tribunal for parting with so choice an investment, but there was no talk of dismissing or punishing the guilty notary.[1334] When the officials enriched themselves with impunity it is not difficult to understand the incessant complaints of the poverty of the tribunals.

[Sidenote: THE JUNTA DE HACIENDA]

That a receiver was expected to use the money in his hands and to be in arrears is indicated by a letter of the Suprema, in 1542, on learning the death of Ramon de Esparza, receiver of Majorca. He had not sent in his accounts and the inquisitor was empowered to compel his heirs to render a statement and to pay whatever balance might be found due.[1335] The device of the coffer had fallen evidently into complete neglect and the Suprema endeavored to resuscitate it by a carta acordada of December 9, 1545, which prescribed that all collections were to be deposited within three days of receipt, if made in the city, or within four days if made in the country, and salaries and other expenses were to be paid only from the money in the coffer, under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ and of ten ducats for each infracion. This was the commencement of an endless series of legislation reiterating or modifying the regulations in a manner to indicate how impossible it was to enforce observance. The delay allowed for deposit was increased from three days to ten; receivers were required to take an oath to obey; reports of all deposits and withdrawals were ordered to be rendered every four months. These constant repetitions are the measure of their inefficiency, and the hardened indifference of the receivers is evidenced by a complaint of Reynoso, Inquisitor of Toledo, in 1556, that since the accounts of the receiver had been balanced he had received large sums which he refused to deposit in the coffer, saying that his accounts had been settled. Then, in 1560, the order of 1545 was reissued with instructions that, in case of infraction, the receiver was to be prosecuted and punished, evidence of which was to be furnished to the Suprema.[1336] It was all in vain and the receivers continued to hold their collections at their convenience.

In 1569, with the object of reducing to some kind of order the finances of the tribunals, a junta de hacienda, or finance committee, was constituted in each, consisting of the inquisitors, the judge of confiscations, the receiver and the notary of sequestrations, which was to meet on the last day of each month and consider all questions of property and income, deciding them by a majority vote. This, with occasional modifications, remained a standing feature of the tribunals, although the repeated exhortations and commands that the sessions be held regularly show how difficult it was to secure business-like action and management.[1337] The attempt was made to utilize this organization in compelling the receivers to deposit their collections in the coffers. In 1576 and again in 1579, orders were issued that, at the monthly meetings, the receiver should declare, under oath and under excommunication, the amount of money in his hands, what he had collected and what placed in the coffer. This was ineffectual and then it was tried to compel the notary of sequestrations to make a declaration that the receiver had deposited all that he admitted to have received. Then, in 1584, a concession was made allowing the receiver to make his deposits monthly, which of course only increased the risk of defalcations. This was followed, in 1586, by orders that he must be compelled to collect and deposit promptly the revenues of the prebends and that, at the monthly meetings, the schedule of income was to be examined in order to see what had been collected and deposited.[1338] It would be wearisome to pursue further these details, which continued indefinitely, with perpetual and ineffectual iteration, to compel the receivers to hand over their collections without delay. It hardly needs the assertion of the memorial of 1623 that the coffer was used in but very few places as a depository for the funds of the tribunals. The writer adds that the receivers thus incur excommunication and commit perjury monthly; the finances suffer great losses and the receivers are ruined by squandering the money, but the only remedy that he can suggest is that the penalties be increased and strict orders be issued that, under no pretext, should funds be left outside of the coffers. These expedients had been abundantly tried but, in the absence of rigid discipline and of punishment of offenders, they had been and continued to be fruitless. Another and most serious omission pointed out was that in many tribunals there was no Libro Becerro or register of property, with descriptions and titles, the lack of which led to great losses and much difficulty in making collections.[1339] The cause of the poverty complained of is not far to seek.

[Sidenote: DEFALCATIONS]

Under the flagrant disregard of the prescribed safeguards, it is not surprising that defalcations were by no means infrequent. The general negligence and the tenderness manifested to official malfeasance facilitated and encouraged embezzlement. It could be concealed by skilfully falsified statements but, when a receiver died, his estate was not uncommonly found to be indebted to the fisc. Thus, in the account of Lazaro del Mar of Valencia, in 1647, there is an item of 372ll. 14s. 2d. still due by the heirs of the late receiver Minuarte, although 2400ll. had already been collected of them during the previous five or six years.[1340] So when, in 1664, Joan Matheu, receiver of Barcelona, was murdered and his accounts were finally reduced to order, in 1666, they were found to be short in the large sum of 47,359ll. 1s. The widow petitioned to be released, or at least to have an abatement, which was refused, but she was given two years in which to settle.[1341]

A somewhat typical ante-mortem case was that of Carlos Albornoz, receiver of Valencia, who, it may be remembered, endeavored, in 1713, to secure the reversion of his office for his son aged twelve, and a few years later succeeded in so doing. There was trouble in getting him to render his accounts for 1723 and three or four subsequent years, and making him pay over the tolerably large confiscations of Alarcon and Macanaz. In 1727 he was allowed to resign in favor of his son and, in 1728, active measures were taken to compel him to furnish his accounts and make payments, which resulted in obtaining 6000 reales and a statement. On this, in December, 1728, the auditor-general found a balance against him of 6248ll. 10s. 1d. besides sums paid by the towns of Villanueva de Castellon and Denia which were not entered in his books. Then commenced the attempt to effect a settlement, which continued, until 1734, with more or less success, his son being meanwhile continued in office, while in the whole voluminous correspondence there is no intimation of any thought of punishing him for his inveterate disobedience and dishonesty.[1342] The confiscations, in fact, seemed to carry with them an infection. The Licentiate Vicente Vidal was administrator of the Valencia portion of the estate of Macanaz and, on settlement of his accounts, he was found to be in debt some 1800ll. The administration was transferred to Manuel Molner, to whom he gave a deed for a property renting for 100ll.; in 1729 he paid his debt and then, in 1732, he had the effrontery to ask the Suprema to refund to him the rents received from his property while in Molner's hands.[1343]

While thus much of the chronic complaint of indigence may reasonably be attributed to mismanagement and peculation, it would be unjust to the Inquisition to ascribe to it a specially bad eminence in this respect. It was probably neither better nor worse than the other departments of the Government. Neglect of duty and misappropriation of funds, common enough to this day in public affairs, were in past times rather the rule than the exception and flourished in Spain, perhaps, to a greater extent than elsewhere. Multiplication of offices and inadequate salaries are direct incentives to irregular gains, and the practical immunity of offenders, caused by the unwise effort to preserve the external reputation of the Holy Office, was an encouragement which could not fail to induce slovenly service, disobedience of rules and frequent embezzlement.

I. THE EDICT OF GRACE

Allusion has occurred above to the Edicts of Grace which, in the earlier period, played an important part in the machinery of the Inquisition. It was a custom inherited from the thirteenth century of which the conditions, as adopted in Spain, are expressed in the Instructions of 1484. When, at any place, a tribunal was opened, at the close of the initial sermon the inquisitors were to publish a Term of Grace, lasting for thirty or forty days, during which those conscious of heresy could come forward, making complete confession of all errors remembered, including those of others. They were to be assured that all who did so, with contrition and desire to abjure, would be charitably received, would be given salutary penance and would not be condemned to death, to perpetual prison or to confiscation, but the inquisitors were empowered to reconcile them and, at their discretion, to require them to give as alms a certain portion of their property in aid of the holy war with the Moors. Spontaneous confession after the Term of Grace, provided the parties had not been testified against, secured reconciliation with confiscation; where adverse testimony had been received, heavier penalties, even to perpetual prison, could be inflicted.[1344] In the supplementary Instructions of December 6, 1484, Torquemada added that the sovereigns granted to those thus reconciled the right to collect debts and confirmed all alienations made prior to the reconciliation, but that no subsequent alienations or encumbrances on real estate would be valid without special royal licence.[1345] This still left questions unsettled and, in Torquemada's further Instructions of January 5, 1485, it was provided that, if the reconciled held public office, they were to be temporarily disabled, until their steadfastness in the faith was proved; those who had been prevented by sickness, or other just impediment, from availing themselves of the Term of Grace were to be admitted but, if there was proof against them, they were subject to confiscation and their cases would be submitted for the royal decision. Those who did not confess fully as to themselves and others were to be regarded as fictitious converts and, if evidence was received against them, were to be prosecuted with the utmost rigor. Fugitives coming forward within the term were to be admitted.[1346]

A case occurring in 1483 shows that this was a mitigation of the pitiless strictness with which the limits of the Term of Grace had been observed. When, in December of that year, Juan Chinchilla was on trial at Ciudad Real, one of the articles of accusation was that he had not come forward during the term. In reply he stated that the Comendador del Carral had sent him away during that time; that he had gone to the Inquisition to confess, but Padre Caetano had retired after hearing mass and he had been told to return at another time; then he went to the receiver and begged him for God's sake to get him admitted; the receiver had promised to do so and came to summon him; he thought that he was being taken to the inquisitors, but found himself thrown in prison. His explanation availed him nothing, nor did his free confession of his errors, and he was duly burnt.[1347] In the awful confusion and haste of those opening years, such cases must have been frequent. There were few formalities observed, for there had not been time to develop an elaborate course of procedure, and each inquisitor, to a large extent, followed his own devices.

[Sidenote: CONFESSIONS UNDER THE EDICT]

I have nowhere met with the full text of an Edict of Grace, but the substantial formula is given in the sentence pronounced, January 30, 1484, in Ciudad Real, against the fugitives Sancho de Ciudad and his wife. This recites that, as there was public report that in Ciudad Real many nominal Christians followed the Law of Moses, the inquisitors had verified it by testimony; that, desiring to treat them with clemency, they had issued their Edict that all thus guilty should come forward and abjure within thirty days, when they would be treated with all possible mercy; that they had extended this for thirty days more and had received all who desired to present themselves, after which they had issued their summons and edict against all who had fled and had been testified against as suspect and defamed for heresy.[1348]

We have seen what was this mercy, in penitential processions and heavy amercements, and we shall see how illusory, in many cases, was the promised immunity, owing to the diminucion or imperfection of the confession. It was required to be full about themselves and others; the assumption necessarily was that they were genuine converts at heart and as such must be eager, not only to discharge their consciences as to all past errors, but to aid in the punishment of all heretics and apostates, including those nearest and dearest to them. Anything short of this showed that their confession was fictitious and thus it only added to their guilt. Ample evidence against them was obtainable, not only from informers who were numerous and active, but from the confessions of others, whether coming in under the edict or on trial. The tribunals were watchful in utilizing all this material, and reconciliation under the edict was apt to be supplemented by arrest and condemnation.

The confessions under the Edicts of Grace are pitiful reading. The poor creatures naturally admit as little as possible, in the hope of diminishing the pecuniary penance. They strive to extenuate their errors and throw the blame on those who misled them; they grovel before the inquisitors, profess the deepest contrition and promise strenuous perseverance in the faith. They rarely go out of their way to compromise others, but they frankly state who it was that perverted them and have no hesitation in implicating parents and kindred and benefactors. Unlike the priest in the confessional, the inquisitors abstained from interrogating them or seeking information about themselves or others. It was not their policy to stimulate confession and the penitent was allowed to state as much or as little as he chose. The results are evidently the unassisted work of the penitents, inconsistent, rambling, frequently almost unintelligible, whether written by themselves or taken down verbatim by the notaries, for it was essential that they should be of record, to be brought up against them, in the probable case of backsliding or of testimony to omitted facts. The confession of Maria Gonsales de la Panpana, Ciudad Real, October 9, 1483, may be taken as a specimen. In it she throws all the blame upon her husband and recites the thrashings received at his hands to force her to follow Jewish observances. She was duly admitted to reconciliation but, in about three months, she was arrested and tried and was burnt in the great auto de fe of February 23, 1484.[1349] The unsubstantial character of the mercy promised in the Edict of Grace is illustrated in the typical case of Andres González, parish priest of Talavera. Soon after the tribunal of Toledo had been organized and before there had been any proclamation in the archidiaconate of Talavera, he sought to protect himself by appearing before the tribunal, making confession and obtaining reconciliation. Doubtless prisoners on trial testified against him, for he was soon afterwards arrested. November 5, 1484 he made a fuller confession, covering all the points of Judaism and disbelief in the sacraments which he had been administering. In spite of his professions of repentance, the fiscal claimed that this was extorted by fear, and presented the evidence of ten witnesses, whose testimony as a whole was but a confirmation of his confession. He gained nothing by his self-denunciation; he was degraded from the priesthood and burnt in the auto de fe of August 17, 1486.[1350]

[Sidenote: THE TIME OF MERCY]

If thus the Edict of Grace was of little benefit to the New Christians, it was of the utmost service to the Inquisition. The multitudes who came forward contributed large sums in their "alms;" they gave the tribunals wide knowledge of suspects and a means of subsequently convicting them on the score of their imperfect confessions--for their confessions could not fail to be technically imperfect. Moreover, the necessity of denouncing all accomplices furnished an invaluable mass of testimony for further prosecutions. Thus, by this simple and apparently merciful expedient, the inquisitor was provided with funds and had his work laid out for him, enabling him to gather in his harvest with small labor of investigation and with full certainty of results. The fisc also had a further advantage in the opportunity afforded by the imperfect confessions of the reconciled. Besides the general compositions for confiscation described above, there were special ones exempting the Conversos from this particular peril. Thus a royal cédula of April 6, 1491, grants to those of Valencia, for five thousand ducats, release of confiscation for all imperfect confessions and for heresies committed up to that date, except in cases of relapse.[1351] Their fears were speculated upon in every way conceivable.

This probably explains some obscure allusions to a Time of Mercy, as distinguished from the Time of Grace, of which the clearest account we have refers to Majorca. A contemporary relates that "Some years after the Time of Grace, perhaps two, when many heretics had confessed some errors but not all, and had suppressed the names of many accomplices, a rigorous inquisition was made against them. Then, at the persuasion of a certain great Rabbi, nearly all the apostates, seeing the afflictions visited upon them, came to the palace of the inquisitors with loud cries and tears (I wish they were sincere) begging for pardon. Then new confessions were made and, by command of the inquisitor-general, with the consent of King Ferdinand, they were admitted to mercy with a moderate pecuniary fine to redeem their lawfully confiscated property. And that time was called the Time of Mercy. And this occurred in our city of the kingdom of Majorca, viz., the Time of Grace in 1488 and the Time of Mercy in 1490, when I was ten years old. Yet the grace and mercy were of little avail for, from then until the current year 1524, the inquisition against them has never ceased; many were delivered to the secular court and very many exposed to shame and imprisoned for life and their property confiscated, yet never would they amend."[1352]

However successful was the device of the Edict of Grace, from the point of view of inquisitor and king, it evidently won over but few to the faith and, after a comparatively brief experience, the Conversos recognized that those who availed themselves of it were in a distinctly worse position than before, as their confessions were on record against them in case of relapse, and they were exposed to the added danger that any imperfections in those confessions were legally construed as impenitence, which was mortal. We shall see, when considering the subject of confession that this question of imperfection was treated so rigidly as to render its avoidance practically impossible, and of this the Inquisition took full advantage, for we find the Suprema instructing the tribunals to scrutinize carefully all confessions made by those under trial and compare them with those presented in the Time of Grace, to see whether anything had been concealed and whether the so-called penitents counselled with each other to shield their friends and kindred.[1353] This latter clause points to another serious bar to the success of Edicts of Grace, in the obligation to denounce accomplices, which involved the exposure to prosecution of all the friends and kindred of the penitent. This was especially felt when the enforced conversion of the Moriscos subjected them to the Inquisition, for one of their evil qualities, we are told, was that, while they could be forced to confess freely about themselves, they could not be induced to betray their neighbors, wherefore they were burnt for impenitence.[1354]

The Moriscos offered the largest field for the exploitation of Terms of Grace during nearly a century. There was an earnest desire, for reasons of state, to secure their conversion, and special concessions were made to them with little result. The details of these will be more conveniently considered hereafter, and it will suffice here to mention that Philip II, towards the close of his reign, proposed to issue an edict of a comprehensive character which should determine the question of expulsion. Convinced of the futility of such measures involving the denunciation of accomplices, he applied to Clement VIII for permission to omit it, but the pontiff was more rigid than the king and, in his brief authorizing the edict, he insisted on the denunciation of apostates.[1355] Philip's death, in 1598, postponed the issue of the edict until August 22, 1599. Every effort was made to render it successful and the twelve months conceded in it were extended to eighteen, expiring February 28, 1601. The result was awaited with anxiety and, on August 22, 1601, the inquisitors reported that during the whole term only thirteen persons had taken advantage of it, and these had made such imperfect confessions and had so shielded their accomplices that they deserved condemnation rather than absolution.[1356]

[Sidenote: UNDER THE RESTORATION]

For two centuries after the expulsion of the Moriscos we hear nothing more of Edicts of Grace. There were no longer in Spain bodies of heretics or suspects to whom such expedients were applicable, and the desired unity of faith was secured so far as practicable but, with the Napoleonic wars, there came new sources of infection. Spain was traversed from end to end by armies composed of heretics like the English or largely of free-thinkers like the French. Jews had taken advantage of the troublous times to pollute the sacred soil and liberal ideas, abhorred alike by Church and State, had ample opportunity of dissemination. With the re-establishment of the Inquisition, in 1814, it seemed opportune to meet the flood of heresy and libertinism by the old methods. On January 2, February 10 and April 5, 1815, therefore, the inquisitor-general issued Edicts of Grace, promising that all who, during the current year, should come forward and denounce themselves for heresy or other crimes justiciable by the Inquisition, should be absolved without punishment and without obligation to denounce accomplices. This was followed, April 12th, with orders to collect all information possible, but not to prosecute until after the expiration of the term, when all who should not have spontaneously presented themselves were to be put on trial. This comprehensive plan can scarce be pronounced a success. The records show that a few espontaneados availed themselves of the promised grace, but the number was lamentably insignificant. This did not encourage prolongation of the term and, on January 12, 1816, another edict announced its expiration and the revival of the old obligation to denounce all offences known to the penitent.[1357] There does not seem to have followed any outburst of prosecutions. The tribunals, doubtless, had been too much occupied in repairing their shattered fortunes to waste much thought on accumulating information as to heretics.

II. THE INQUISITORIAL PROCESS

In considering the judicial functions of the Inquisition, we shall meet with much that is abhorrent to our conceptions of justice. We shall see that the accused was assumed to be guilty and that the object of the tribunal was to induce or coerce him to confess his guilt; that, for this purpose, he was substantially deprived of facilities for defence and that the result, for the most part, depended on his powers of endurance which the judges, at discretion, could test to the utmost. It would not be easy to construct a system more repugnant to rational methods for the ascertainment of truth.

At the same time, the vices of the inquisitorial process, at the period under consideration, were not wholly confined to the Inquisition. It is true that it was responsible for their origin, in the thirteenth century, when the jurisprudence of Europe was undergoing reconstruction, and the methods which it framed for the conviction of heresy offered such advantages to the prosecution that they were adopted in the secular courts of nearly all the lands where the Holy Office found a foothold, and became an essential part of criminal codes. The judge, in place of an impartial dispenser of justice, grew to be virtually a prosecutor, with unlimited power of wringing confession from the accused; the latter was practically compelled to prove his innocence, and the trained and subtle intellects of the bench were engaged in conflict with the cunning or stupidity of the miserable wretches brought before them. On the one side was the pride, resolved not to be baffled, on the other the desperate effort at self-preservation and, in the unequal struggle, innocence was much more apt to suffer than guilt to escape. So completely did this identification of judge and prosecutor dominate the criminal jurisprudence of Latin Europe, that in France, until the law of December 8, 1897, after the jury system had been in use for a century, the judge, armed with the sumaria or dossier of incriminating evidence, opened the trial by interrogating the accused and assuming his guilt--an interrogation which was liable speedily to degenerate into a duel between them, in which the judge endeavored to break down the line of defence which the accused was obliged unskilfully to reveal.[1358]

In this the kingdoms of Aragon were strikingly exceptional, for the inquisitorial process, as we have seen, was prohibited. In Aragon itself the interests of the accused were carefully guarded. There were elaborate provisions against arbitrary arrest, although admission to bail was limited. Accusers had to give security and were liable to double costs and damages in case of failure to prove charges. Witnesses were diligently cross-examined and, in cases involving serious punishment, five disinterested jurists were associated with the judge in passing sentence, against which there was right of appeal. There was no public prosecutor, before the revision of procedure by the Córtes of Monzon in 1510, and then it took many years to bring the office into general use. The abuse existed of prosecutions in absentia though, if the accused subsequently appeared, he had the right to appeal, and still worse was the custom of keeping the prisoner chained until his trial was concluded.[1359] In Valencia, and probably elsewhere, there was a peculiarly valuable privilege that no one, whether defendant or witness, was compelled to answer questions that would criminate him.[1360] In Biscay, the fueros, as revised in 1526 and in force until the Revolution, were very emphatic in providing the accused with all information necessary to his defence.[1361]

[Sidenote: SECULAR PROCEDURE]

In Castile the processes by accusation and by inquisition were both employed. An accuser, however, was obliged to give security and was subject to fines if it appeared that he acted through malice. If there was no accuser, the judge, or alcalde, made inquisition and proceeded summarily to try the case. When, under the impulse of Isabella and the guidance of Alfonso Díaz de Montalvo, the Córtes of Toledo, in 1480, revised the criminal jurisprudence of the land, their action served as a basis for all subsequent legislation. It breathes the spirit of justice--the rigorous punishment of guilt and avoidance of punishment of innocence. The courts were enjoined to quick despatch, the accused was to have all necessary opportunities for defence; if poor, counsel was supplied at the public expense; he could recuse any judge for cause and appeal from any decision, and he was always entitled to give bail. Prosecution in absentia, however, was allowed; after three summonses of nine days each, the accused could be prosecuted in rebeldia, as contumacious and be condemned.[1362]

While thus in Castile legislation was dictated by a sincere desire for justice, in practice the accused was subjected to unnecessary disadvantages and hardships. We chance to have the proceedings in the case of Francisco Fernández de Montemayor, of Seville, tried in Ciudad Real in 1499, on a charge of petty thefts on fellow-lodgers in an inn, in which the general course of procedure bears sufficient resemblance to that of the Inquisition to show that the latter borrowed its forms from the secular courts with modifications to facilitate conviction. When Montemayor was arrested in his inn, September 10th, his effects were sequestrated, locked in his chest and left in charge of the innkeeper. When money was needed for his prison expenses, the judges, on his application, sent the prison scrivener to take out a prescribed sum in the presence of witnesses. The witnesses on both sides were examined on a series of written interrogatories, a most imperfect method, and were not cross-examined. Their names were not concealed, but the accused was kept in gaol and was not present. His own examination was made by the judges in an audiencia de cárcel. He was allowed to retain an advocate, who presented a written defence. The charges were frivolous and, on October 28th, the judges pronounced that the fiscal had not proved his case, which acquitted the prisoner. His treatment in gaol had been harsh; he was an hidalgo and, a few days after arrest, he asked to be treated as a man of good lineage and not to be herded with criminals, whereupon he was placed in a cell, with a heavy chain, under close guard. On acquittal he begged to be released from his fetters, which was done on his swearing not to leave the prison--for he was not discharged. Unluckily, the testimony contained some heretical speeches, though the witnesses believed them to have been uttered in jest, as he was always striving to be jocular. The secular court could take no cognizance of them but the Inquisition claimed him and he was delivered to it in chains, November 9th. His trial had occupied six weeks; the Inquisition kept him for two years and, on November 10, 1501, it penanced him and made him abjure de vehementi. Doubtless the poor wretch was ruined.[1363]

[Sidenote: THE SPIRITUAL COURTS]

If we find reason to believe that the tribunals of the Inquisition were largely actuated by passion or greed, they were in this no worse than the secular courts. The constantly reiterated complaints of the Córtes, during the sixteenth century, assume that the whole judicial system of Castile, from the highest to the lowest, was not so much an instrumentality of justice as a venal organization to extort the largest possible sums from pleaders and to oppress the poor for the benefit of the rich.[1364] We might, perhaps, regard this as rhetorical exaggeration if we had not the opportunity of seeing how a court of the highest rank--the royal Audiencia of Seville--in 1598, disregarded all law and justice when it sought to gratify its spite on the magistracy of that city. We have seen (Vol. I, p. 362) the absurd quarrel raised with the judges by the inquisitors on the occasion of the obsequies of Philip II. The judges, unable to avenge themselves on the tribunal, discharged their wrath upon the civic authorities, who had sought to mediate and keep the peace. They arrested on the spot several of the highest officials, including two members of the great house of Ponce de Leon and, in spite of the indecency of sitting as judges in their own case, they prosecuted their prisoners. They took the testimony of thirty-seven witnesses on written interrogatories, containing leading questions, and accepted hearsay evidence of the veriest gossip. The accused were allowed to see the accusation framed by the fiscal, but not the evidence, and no opportunity of making defence was permitted. Thereupon their advocates recused the judges, but the recusation was not only rejected on the day of its presentation, but the accused and their advocates were all heavily fined for offering it and, the next day, sentence was pronounced condemning the prisoners to various terms of suspension from office, exile, fines and costs. Both they and the fiscal appealed, and a second hearing was held, in which the defendants at last were allowed to see the evidence. Both parties meanwhile had been applying to the Council of Castile, which ordered that the sentence should not be confirmed without being first submitted to it, but the judges anticipated this and, the day before the order was received, hastily assembled with closed doors and, in the absence of the accused and their counsel, affirmed the decision and ordered its immediate execution, with the exception of Ponce de Leon Almansa, who was of kin to one of them. The sentences were carried out with cruel vindictiveness. There was pestilence in the district to which the exiles were sent and they were brought back sick to Seville, where the Alcalde mayor, Juan Ponce de Leon, died and the others were treated with the utmost harshness.[1365] When the royal courts permitted themselves such arbitrary perversions of justice, we need not be surprised that the Inquisition was reckless, shielded as it was from responsibility by impenetrable secrecy. Between them, the Spanish people were sorely vexed.

To this the spiritual courts offered a contrast in their customary benignity towards clerical offenders, amounting almost to immunity. The course of procedure was that, when a denunciation was made to the provisor or vicar-general, he took testimony or sent an official to make inquisition; the accused was summoned and was admitted to bail; the trial took the shape of an action between him and the fiscal, who presented an accusation to which the defence made reply. Witnesses for the defence were examined, publication of evidence was made and, when both parties had concluded, the judge named a day for pronouncing sentence. From two cases of the sixteenth century, of which the papers are before me, it would appear that there was little delay, that formalities were loosely observed and that the proverbial leniency shown to the cloth rendered the whole a matter of comparative indifference. One of these illustrates the expiring episcopal jurisdiction over heresy and its supplantation by the Inquisition. In 1551, Diego de Carcano, a priest of Ciudad Real, was tried for heretical acts and speeches, which he freely admitted, saying that they had been in jest and that he ought not to have trifled with the things of God. The trial was concluded within three weeks and Diego was confined for a few days in a parish church with spiritual exercises, besides paying costs, amounting to about thirty-two reales. Two years later, Inquisitor Valtodano, on a visitation, chanced to hear of the affair; he treated the episcopal trial as invalid and vindicated together the faith and the inquisitorial jurisdiction by a second prosecution of the unlucky priest.[1366]

The laxity of the Church towards its erring members was still further illustrated by the reforms adopted in the provincial synod of Toledo, held in 1565 to receive the Council of Trent. The fiscal was ordered not to denounce any one to the judge; no inquisition was to be made, unless there was a legitimate general report against a culprit, and then the judge was required to investigate carefully whether it arose from malevolence or from reputable persons. If the fiscal desired to accuse any one he was subjected to the laws concerning accusers and, if he failed to prove the charges, he was liable for the costs and to punishment at the discretion of the judge. All pecuniary penalties were to be expended in pious uses, and not for the advantage of the bishop or his vicar-general, and an official was to be deputed to receive them and render a strict account.[1367]

* * * * *

The most marked distinction between the procedure of the Inquisition and that of the other jurisdictions was the inviolable secrecy in which all its operations were shrouded. There were, indeed, other evil peculiarities, but this it was which inflicted the greatest wrong on its victims and exposed the inquisitor to the strongest temptation to abuse his power. It was an inheritance from the thirteenth century, when the Inquisition early discovered the greater freedom of action and the increased popular dread resulting from the mystery which emancipated it from public opinion and veiled all its actions, until their outcome was revealed in the solemnities of the auto de fe. The Roman Inquisition retained it, but in a somewhat modified degree. All its officials were sworn to silence as to everything that occurred in the Congregation but, in 1629, this was explained as restricted only to matters that might prejudice cases.[1368] Very different was the awful silence so enforced in Spain that it formed an important factor in the power of the Holy Office.

[Sidenote: SECRECY]

It is not a little remarkable that, when the institution was introduced in Castile, so little was known of its practical working that its procedure was public, like that of the secular and spiritual courts. Thus, in 1483, the record of a trial in Ciudad Real speaks of the inquisitors sitting in public audience; the notaries specify as present at the hearing certain persons by name "and many others who were there present;" the inquisitors were listening to all who came before them, while the fiscal and notary were making reports.[1369] It was deemed necessary that there should be spectators to bear witness to the proceedings; sometimes these were connected with the tribunal, sometimes they were citizens called in for the purpose, whose names were regularly entered upon the record.[1370] Even the prison, subsequently guarded so jealously, was not as yet known as the cárceles secretas, but as a cárcel publica.[1371] In 1488, the Instructions order the records to be kept "in a public place, where the inquisitors customarily perform the duties of the Inquisition."[1372] The earliest indication of a change in this respect occurs in the Instructions of 1498, where the oath prescribed for inquisitors and other officials contains a pledge of secrecy.[1373] This did not, as yet however, extend to a complete exclusion of publicity, for some Toledo trials of 1501 describe the fiscal as presenting his clamosa, or demand for prosecution, where the inquisitors were sitting as customary in their public audience, but, during the trial itself, they sat in the "audiencia de cárcel."[1374] From the expressions used we may assume that as yet the inquisition building and the prison were separate; that public audiences were held in the former, and that the latter contained a room to which the accused could be brought from his cell when on trial. The secreto, which subsequently embraced the prison and everything beyond the ante-chambers, as yet only designated a chest or a room in which the records and registers were kept in safety.[1375]

Yet even during this early period there had commenced, in certain portions of procedure, a practice of secrecy which markedly differentiated the Inquisition from the ecclesiastical and secular courts. The suppression of the names and identity of witnesses and the strict seclusion of prisoners from the outside world are matters which will be more fully discussed hereafter, but already they had become distinctive features of the inquisitorial process, inflicting great hardship on the accused, which was keenly felt. The tendency of all such abuses to development, the facility with which the reasons alleged in justification could be extended over all the acts of the Inquisition, and the attraction of the arbitrary and irresponsible power thus gained, readily explain the rapid evolutionary process which enveloped, with an impenetrable veil of secrecy, everything connected with the tribunals, from the preliminary inquest and the arrest of the accused, to his discharge or appearance in an auto de fe.

[Sidenote: SECRECY]

The obligation of the oath of secrecy was rigidly construed when, in 1523, the vicar-general of Saragossa seems to have babbled about what he had heard when called in to vote at a consulta de fe, and the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to summon him and warn him not to reveal the secrets of the Holy Office.[1376] In 1544, Mari Serrana, on trial at Toledo, was charged with impeding the Inquisition, because she had endeavored to ascertain whether a certain person had testified in another case and what he had said--the mere attempt to learn what went on within those mysterious walls was treated as a crime.[1377] In 1547, when the tribunal of Granada was moved into new quarters, it found its secrecy imperilled by the fact that it was overlooked by some windows in the house of Francisco de Santa Cruz, and, on its complaint to Prince Philip, he ordered the corregidor to have those windows closed up--apparently without compensation to the owner.[1378] So impenetrable was the shroud enveloping all that took place within the tribunal that, when Philip II deemed it imperative to consult a distinguished surgeon who had been arrested, Inquisitor-general Quiroga left two applications unanswered and to a third replied that, if the person was there, he could not be taken out, nor could it even be told whether he was or was not a prisoner, whereupon the king desisted from his request. On this the comment of an inquisitor is that to all inquiries the answer must be that nothing is known.[1379] So when, in 1643, the Suprema argued against the claim of the Justicia of Aragon to grant his manifestacion or habeas corpus in secular cases, the chief reason alleged was that, if a tribunal could be required to differentiate cases of faith from others and to admit that it had a certain person in its prison, and the cause, its secrecy would be violated.[1380] This was emphasized, in 1678, by a declaration of the Suprema that an inquisitor admitting that any individual was in the secret prison would incur excommunication removable only by the pope.[1381] It is easy to understand why the prison was habitually designated as the cárceles secretas and why, when a person was arrested, he disappeared as utterly as though the earth had swallowed him.

At every step in the progress of a case minute precautions were taken to insure absolute secrecy. It was not only all officials who were thus sworn, but accuser and accused and their witnesses were subjected to the same obligation. As early as 1531, a witness when dismissed was ordered to observe silence as to all that he had said or heard, under pain of excommunication and a thousand ducats, and of the other penalties of those who violate the secrecy of the Holy Office.[1382] As late as 1817, in a trifling case which was suspended, the informer was fined for not having preserved secrecy.[1383] It was the same with the accused. At the very first audience, the oath administered to tell the truth contained a clause pledging him to silence, not only as to his own case but as to all that he might see or hear. When he was dismissed, whether to punishment or to freedom, he was required to sign a pledge under oath to the same effect, to which was added a threat of punishment, occasionally taking the shape of one or two hundred lashes.[1384] In the later years of the Inquisition this was frequently reinforced by including in the sentence a clause prohibiting the culprit from talking in any manner about his case.[1385] The tribunal thus was relieved from responsibility and could commit injustice without fear of unpleasant revelations, and the Holy Office could boast, as it customarily did, of the exquisite equity of its judgements, without danger of contradiction. To what extent this was justified may be guessed from a remark of Peña, that no inspection was allowed of the acts of the tribunals because they were often in conflict with the common law and the universal opinion of the doctors.[1386]

Nothing connected with the proceedings of the Inquisition was allowed to remain outside of its walls. Every letter, or mandate, or instruction, or warrant, sent out was invariably required to be returned with the answer or endorsement of its execution. Even the Edicts of Faith and Anathemas given out for publication in the churches were returned with statements of the day on which they were publicly read.[1387] This applied to the counsel entrusted with the defence of the accused. Not only was he sworn to secrecy and to communicate with no one concerning the cases, but the scanty papers entrusted to him were to be kept under lock and key and be scrupulously returned to the tribunal, so that there should be no trace or memory of them. The formal defence which he prepared had to be written by his own hand and no rough draft of it be preserved; no printer was allowed to print such a document nor, indeed, any other paper relating to the Inquisition, without special licence from the inquisitor-general or Suprema, under pain of excommunication and a hundred ducats.[1388] This jealous reserve explains the form in which the records of the Inquisition reach us--those of each process rudely but firmly sewed together and never bound, for they could not be given out to a binder nor could one be admitted into the sacred precincts of the secreto. These injunctions of secrecy were not allowed to be a dead letter. In the Edicts of Faith special clauses called for the denunciation of all cases of violation, or of papers concerning its acts being in the possession of any one.[1389]

[Sidenote: SECRECY]

Its procedure was guarded with the same anxious care from public knowledge. In 1573, Leonardo Donato, the Venetian envoy, who regarded the Inquisition as necessary to Spain, describes its action as so secret that nothing was known of its victims and their cases until their sentences were published in the autos de fe, but the fear entertained of it was so universal that little was said concerning it through dread of arousing suspicion. He had been able to learn nothing of its methods, but was told that they were good and that the sentences were always just.[1390] No one, in fact, was allowed to know what was its form of procedure. The Instructions, it is true, were necessarily printed. There was an edition of the Antiguas in Seville, in 1536, reprinted in Madrid in 1576. The Nuevas of 1561 were printed in 1612 and the whole were re-edited by Arguello, an official of the Suprema, in 1627 and 1630, but these were strictly reserved for use in the tribunals and their details were constantly subject to modification by the cartas acordadas of the Suprema, which never saw the light. Experienced inquisitors drew up manuals of practice, many of which are still preserved in the MSS. of the archives and libraries, but this knowledge of the estilo or methods of procedure was strictly confined to officials sworn to secrecy. It was apparently soon after the preparation of the Instructions of 1561 that a Doctor Blasco de Alagona had the audacity to ask for a copy of them, when the fiscal, to whom the petition was referred, declared that the granting of such a request would be unexampled, and he had no difficulty in proving that parties before the tribunal had no business to inquire into its methods; the Instructions were solely for its guidance and were to be known to others only by their results in the administration of justice. If they came to public knowledge, evil-intentioned men could debate whether the estilo of the Inquisition was good or bad.[1391]

[Sidenote: SECRECY]

The extreme importance of the "seal" was fully recognized in assuring freedom of irresponsible action and in creating the popular impression of mysterious impeccability. Philip II, in his instructions to Manrique de Lara, in 1595, dwelt on this and pointed out that "without it the Holy Office could not preserve the untrammelled exercise of its functions" wherefore any official violating it must be punished with the utmost rigor.[1392] Apparently cases of infraction occurred, drawing from the Suprema a carta acordada pointing out that all the power and authority and reputation of those serving in the Holy Office rested upon secrecy. The more secret its affairs were kept, the more they were venerated by those from whom they were concealed. The neglect of this had aroused in the Suprema the greatest resentment, as it was a matter of so great moment to the estimation and respect in which the affairs and the members of the Inquisition had always been held. Therefore it had been resolved that the oath of secrecy, taken on admission to office, should be so construed that its infraction should constitute perjury and infidelity. Single witnesses should suffice for conviction; on a first offence the culprit should be suspended irremissibly for a year and pay fifty ducats, and on a repetition be perpetually dismissed. Even if not convicted he should realize that, in the forum of conscience, he could not draw his salary. This secrecy covered not only matters of faith and depending thereon, but all votes, orders, determinations, letters of the Suprema, informations of limpieza and all other matters, no information concerning which was to be given to the parties concerned or to any outside person, while even the public utterances of the tribunals were not to be spoken of. Moreover, the above penalties and major excommunication were incurred by all who, knowing of infractions of secrecy, did not report them to the Suprema. Finally, this carta was ordered to be filed with the Instructions, to be read annually to the assembled officials.[1393]

The instructions to commissioners warned them that the existence and preservation of the Inquisition depended chiefly on the absolute secrecy to be observed as to all its affairs.[1394] This continued to the end. A decree of the Suprema, December 7, 1814, speaks of the seal which is the soul of the Inquisition.[1395] In fact, there was no hesitation in assimilating it to the seal of confession and in employing the casuistry which justified a confessor in denying under oath what he had learned in the confessional. Similarly the official was told that no oath was binding when the affairs of the Inquisition were concerned--he could depose as to what he knew as an individual, but not what he knew as an official entrusted with its secrets.[1396] We can understand the significance of the popular saying con el rey y la inquisicion, chiton!--keep silence as to the king and the Inquisition.

Even within the tribunals the same mystery was observed in investigating cases of infraction. When an intimation was received that secrecy had been violated, the junior inquisitor examined into it and wrote out the "information" with his own hand, and without allowing any one to know of it. This was then deposited in a separate chest, of which the senior inquisitor held the key; the Suprema was advised of the matter and its instructions were awaited.[1397]

Not the least important result of this secrecy was the fact that it enabled the Inquisition to combine legislative and judicial functions in a manner known to no other tribunal. It framed its own code and administered it in darkness. It is true, as we shall have occasion to see, that many of the regulations and limitations of the Instructions were inspired by a sense of justice, but this mattered little when the secrecy, so jealously preserved, practically left everything to the discretion of the tribunal, until the Suprema absorbed and centralized everything into itself. Shielded from responsibility--save to the more or less perfunctory occasional visitation of an inspector--there was scarce any injustice that could not be safely perpetrated, or any enmity that a perjured witness could not gratify. The secrets of those dark prison-houses will never be known, even by the records, for these were framed by those whose acts they recount and they may be true or falsified. What was the real administration of so-called justice can only be guessed by occasional revelations such as we chance to have in the trials of Archbishop Carranza, of the Nuns of San Placido, of Gerónimo de Villanueva, of Fray Froilan Díaz and, when the principles of justice were set at naught by the chiefs of the Inquisition in the cases of those so prominent, it is not likely that the obscure were treated with greater consideration by the tribunals. At its best, the inquisitorial process left much to the temper and disposition of the judge; as modified by the Inquisition, the fate of the accused was virtually at the discretion of the tribunal, and that discretion was relieved of the wholesome restraint of publicity. At a time when, as we have seen, the secular courts, although open to the public, were little better than instruments of oppression and extortion, it is not to be imagined that the inquisitorial tribunals, shrouded in impenetrable secrecy, and largely dependent for support on fines and confiscations, were scrupulous in the administration of the cruel laws against heresy.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: USE OF THE FISCAL]

In the original medieval Inquisition the procedure was a pure inquisitio, the inquisitor frankly acting as both prosecutor and judge, collecting testimony, examining witnesses, seeking to make the accused confess or convict himself, and passing sentence. As the institution, in the fifteenth century, declined and became disorganized, its duties were to some extent resumed by the bishops, in whose courts the pressure of multifarious business had long rendered necessary a prosecuting officer, known as the promotor fiscal, duly trained in the civil and canon law. Cases of heresy inevitably followed the routine of the court and consequently assumed the form of actions between the fiscal and the accused, as plaintiff and defendant, with the bishop or his Official as judge.[1398]

This, at least in appearance, removed one of the most repulsive features of the pure inquisitorial process, as the judge was no longer a party to the case and could affect a semblance of impartiality, even though he were, in reality, the instigator of the prosecution. When the Holy Office was established in Castile, it assumed to be merely the continuance of the Old Inquisition; in its collections of privileges it included papal thirteenth century bulls, along with the modern ones, and the ferocious laws of Frederic II with the cédulas of the Catholic kings.[1399] Yet it knew so little of the older formulas and procedure that it adopted those of the secular and spiritual tribunals of the period, and thus its practice assumed the external form of accusatio rather than of inquisitio, with a fiscal, or public prosecutor, as an accuser. While, on the surface, this was a step towards fairness and justice, care was taken that the interests of the faith should not suffer. It gave to the inquisitors the assistance of a trained lawyer, whose business it was to prove his charges, who lost no opportunity of exaggerating the offences imputed to the accused, who assumed that they had been proved, who resisted all the efforts of the defence to disprove them, and who was free from all the penalties and responsibilities of an accuser. The form of sentence, adopted at the beginning and steadfastly adhered to, asserts that the judges have been listening to a case pending between the fiscal and the defendant, and they find that the fiscal either has proved his charges completely or partially, or that he has failed to do so.[1400] This was an assumption perfectly false and intended to deceive the people when read in an auto de fe.

It was the inquisitors who gathered testimony. The Instructions of 1484 expressly order the examination of witnesses to be made personally by an inquisitor and not to be committed to a notary, unless the witness is too sick to appear and it should be indecent for the inquisitor to go to him, when he could empower the ecclesiastical judge to perform the duty with a notary.[1401] Business was too pressing, however, for the inquisitors always to examine witnesses and they frequently deputized persons to act for them, but those deputies were never the fiscal, and the apologetic tone of the commission shows that it was irregular and demanded an excuse.[1402] As time went on, the tendency to shirk the labor increased; the notaries were allowed to examine, by the Instructions of 1498, provided it was in presence of the inquisitor; then this condition was neglected, in spite of vehement remonstrance by the Suprema, and finally, in the later period, when there was little serious work to be done, special commissions, as we have seen, were common, apparently with no greater excuse than the indolence of the inquisitors.[1403]

[Sidenote: USE OF THE FISCAL]

Still, the fiction was preserved that the witnesses were presented by the fiscals, although the Suprema, in 1534, informed them that it was no part of their duty to collect evidence, although if they obtained any, they were to communicate it to the inquisitors.[1404] Their duties, in fact, in addition to seeking the condemnation of the accused, were those of a superior clerk of the court--to draw up accusations, to conduct correspondence, to advise the inquisitors, to marshall the evidence, to keep the records in order or to see that the secretaries did so, to attend to the execution of sentences, and to exercise a general supervision over the officials, besides attending the meetings of the junta de hacienda and looking after the financial interests of the tribunal.[1405] The fiscal, moreover, served a useful purpose as a bogey to frighten the accused, who were constantly threatened with what would happen if they did not confess before he was admitted to present a formal accusation, in which he customarily demanded torture and relaxation for them--but, after all, his chief use was to preserve the fiction that the prosecution was an action between parties. As Simancas says, even when the culprit confesses, the fiscal must present an accusation, in order that a judgement may be based on accuser, accused and judge.[1406] In short, he was simply one of the officers of the court who, as a trained lawyer, gave to the inquisitors, who were apt to be theologians, the benefit of his legal knowledge. His only real position as a party to an action was a distinct disadvantage to the accused for, in case of acquittal or of a sentence which he deemed too light, he had the right, not infrequently exercised, of appealing to the Suprema, and consequently his assent to the decision was necessary. As his dignity gradually increased, he was classed among the judges by the Córtes of Aragon in 1646;[1407] we have seen how he finally came to be known as "inquisitor-fiscal" and how his place was generally filled by one of the inquisitors, who, however, abstained from the final vote on the case. The fiscal, indeed, from an early period was admitted to the consulta de fe, where he could state facts and advance arguments--a most indecent privilege--though he was required to depart before the vote was taken. In 1660 this was discontinued, not in consequence of its shocking incongruity, but because there was a troublesome question of precedence between him and the episcopal Ordinary, whose duty it was to be present.[1408]

There was nothing in the function of the fiscal to prevent the inquisitor from initiating proceedings on the strength of any rumors that might reach him, or of compromising evidence gathered from the confessions of others. He had not to wait for the fiscal's action, but could order an inquest to be made and testimony to be taken and, when this was done, it was given to the fiscal to be put into shape for the formal prosecution. No matter how upright might be the inquisitor, the mere fact that he had ordered an arrest and trial necessarily committed him to belief in the guilt of the accused; he was unconsciously prejudiced from the start and to acquit cost a greater effort than to convict. Thus although externally the form of procedure was accusatio, in reality it was inquisitio, and the injection of the fiscal as accuser only diminished the chances of the defence, by giving the inquisitors a skilled legal assistant in the conduct of a prosecution, in which they were all prosecutors.

Yet, whatever we may think of the morality of the inquisitorial process, there can be no doubt as to its efficacy. In studying the long and minute records of the trials, where every detail is set forth in writing, it is instructive to see how often the accused, who commences by boldly asserting his orthodoxy, comes in successive audiences to make some admission of which advantage is skilfully taken and gradually the denial breaks down, or perhaps yields to the terrors of the accusation and the publication of evidence, ending in complete confession and eager implication of kindred and friends. The situation of the accused, in fact, was helpless. Standing up alone before the stern admonitions of the trained and pitiless judge; brooding in his cell, cut off from all external communication, during weeks or months of interval between his audiences; apparently forgotten, but living in the constant uncertainty of being at any moment summoned to appear; torturing his mind as to the impression which his utterances might have made, or the deductions drawn from his admissions or denials; balancing between the chances of escape, by persistent assertions of innocence, and those of condemnation as an impenitente negativo, and urged by his so-called advocate to confess and throw himself on the mercy of the tribunal--it required an exceptionally resolute temperament to endure the prolonged strain, with the knowledge that the opponent in the deadly game always had in reserve the terrible resource of the torture-chamber. The whole course of the procedure was based on the assumption that the accused was guilty; that it was the province of the tribunal to induce or compel him to confess his guilt and, in the great majority of instances the assumption was correct. To those who regarded aberrations from the faith as the greatest of crimes before God and man, and their punishment as the most acceptable service that man could render to God, this presumption of guilt served to justify the cruelty of the procedure and the denial of all facilities for defence which, to those trained in the principles of English justice, seem the imprescriptible right of the accused, whether innocent or not.

[Sidenote: THE INQUISITORIAL IDEAL]

There can, indeed, be no doubt that, amid much greed and callous indifference to justice, there were men engaged in the service who deemed themselves to be doing the work of God and that their methods were merciful. The Inquisition was not as other tribunals which only punished the body; it asserted its high and holy mission to be the saving of souls. As the inquisitors of Valencia said, in 1536, to Miguel Mesquita, on his trial for Lutheranism, they required of him nothing but the truth and, if he had fallen into error, they sought to disabuse him and to cure his conscience so that his soul might not be lost.[1409]

The Instructions of 1561, which remained to the last the basis of procedure, are emphatic in cautioning inquisitors not to be led astray, either by the witnesses or by the confessions of the accused, but to determine all cases according to truth and justice; they must preserve strict impartiality for, if they lean to one side or to the other, they can readily be deceived.[1410] If we may believe the veteran inquisitor Páramo, the Holy Office was so conducted on this lofty plane as to be an unmixed blessing to the land. Its holiness, he says, is so conspicuous that there is no opening for hatred, favor, subornation, love, intercession, or other human motive. Every act is performed with such conscientiousness and regard for equity and justice; the inquisitors so investigate everything, undisturbed by the multitude, that they inspire all men with dread of the crimes which are brought before them and, in the all-pervading silence, they act with incredible conscientiousness. The evidence of witnesses is scrutinized in the light of their character and quality and those who are found to bear false-witness are most severely punished. The accused, while detained in the prisons, are treated kindly and liberally, according to their condition; the poor and the sick are abundantly furnished with food and medicines, at the expense of the fisc, and are favored in every way. Not only are the utterances of witnesses investigated with distrust but, as Time is the revealer of truth, cases are not hurriedly finished but are prudently prolonged, as is requisite when there is such peril of the life, fame and property, not only of the accused but of his kindred. If his innocence appears probable, every effort is made to prove it and, if it is proved, to avert from him any loss of reputation, for which reason he is carried on horseback, adorned with laurels and palms like a victor in a triumph--a spectacle inspiring to the souls of the timid, depressed by the severity with which the guilty are punished. Those who are restored from such peril to their former condition never cease to thank God for placing on earth a tribunal of which the chief care is to uphold the honor of the innocent. When inquisitors punish heretics it is not with the desire to destroy them, but that they shall be converted and live. In judging and chastising, the Holy Office labors to amend him whom it punishes, or to benefit others by his punishment, so that they may live in security when the wicked are removed.[1411]

To what extent this idealization of inquisitorial methods was justified, we have had some opportunity to see, and we shall have more.